Preamble

The House—after the Adjournment on 19th December, 197, for the Christmas Recess—met at Half Past Two o'Clock.

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

DEATH OF A MEMBER

Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Allen, K.B.E., D.S.O., Member for the County of Armagh, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the honourable and gallant Member.

NEW WRIT

Mr. SPEAKER acquainted the House that he had issued, during the Adjournment, a Warrant for a new Writ for the Burgh of Glasgow (Camlachie Division), in the room of Campbell Stephen, Esquire, deceased.

Oral Answers to Questions — TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

Bell's Yard, Morden

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he will receive an deputation from the Merton and Morden Urban District Council to discuss his refusal to allow the use of the site known as Bell's Yard, Morden, for housing purposes.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. King): The decision in this case was given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and I understand that he has already explained it to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Palmer: Would not my hon. Friend agree that it is rather unreasonable of his right hon. Friend to refuse to receive this deputation?

Mr. King: I am not sure to which of my right hon. Friends the hon. Member is referring, but this is the responsibility of the Minister of Health.

1947 Act (Appointed Day)

Mr. Walker-Smith: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is able to announce the appointed day under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.

Mr. King: My right hon. Friend will be making an announcement shortly.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Will the Minister bear in mind the desirability of fixing the date as soon as possible and thereby relieving of uncertainty local authorities, landowners, and, indeed, these who are called upon to advise them?

Mr. King: Yes, certainly, and I will go further and say that that announcement will come within two or three weeks.

Kensington Square (Roadway)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning for what reason he has delayed for six months an announcement of his decision on the appeal of John Barker & Co., Ltd., against the refusal of the London County Council to permit them to drive a roadway through an eighteenth-century house in Kensington Square; whether his decision has yet been taken, and when it will be announced; and whether he is aware that pending the conclusion of these protracted proceedings seven dwelling houses in this square and the adjacent Young Street, which might be used as such, are being kept empty or used by Barkers for casual storage.

Mr. King: Delay in reaching a decision was due in the first instance to the complexities of the issues raised and many interests involved. Messrs. Barkers have now asked my right hon. Friend to defer his decision because they wish to examine with the authorities concerned the possibilities of a different scheme to ease the traffic difficulties. My right hon. Friend is in communication with the London County Council and subject to what they have to say he proposes to accede to Messrs. Barkers' request. I am not aware that the use or otherwise of any houses has been affected by the absence of a decision on the appeal.

Mr. Keeling: Is the Minister aware that this very long delay of six months is holding up planning and, even if it is not holding up housing, as I think it is, it is holding up other proceedings which are pending against Barkers? When Barkers asked for a decision to be delayed, were the other parties immediately asked if they would agree, or was this only done after the Question had been put down?

Mr. King: Messrs. Barkers have asked for a delay, and we are now in communication with the London County Council. If agreement is possible, I would have thought that was the better solution.

Mr. Keeling: That is not an answer.

Mr. Scott-Elliot: Is the Minister aware that this is a question of considerable interest to the National Trust, and is he further aware that when Messrs. Barkers bought this house, they knew perfectly well there was a restrictive covenant upon it, which they are now seeking to evade?

Mr. King: My Department is fully aware of the architectural interests involved, and they are doing their utmost to safeguard them. Messrs. Barkers may now put forward different proposals, which I should have thought was a good solution.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Contributions

Mr. Palmer: asked the Minister of National Insurance if, when making regulations under the provisions of the National Insurance Act, he will give consideration to reducing the weekly contribution required from those who fall into the unemployed class because of injuries received in the service of the country and, in particular, pensioners of the 1914–18 war.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): A reduction in contributions would carry with it a corresponding reduction in benefits, and I doubt whether action on the lines suggested would be in the best interests of the insured persons concerned. I should add that regulations will provide that persons normally in the employed class, including the disabled, will be entitled to credits of contributions for weeks of proved unemployment.

Supplementary Pensions

Mr. Heathcoat Amory: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware that present scales of supplementary pensions and allowances are inadequate, in view of increasing prices of coal and other things; and what action he now proposes to remedy a situation which is causing growing hardship to many old people.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Any increase in the scales of supplementary pensions and unemployment assistance is a matter in the first instance for the Assistance Board. The Board will be under duty to prepare and submit to me fresh draft regulations when the National Assistance Bill becomes law. These will, of course, be subject to Affirmative Resolution by both Houses. I should add that, under the current regulations, the Board have wider powers, which they regularly exercise, to deal exceptionally with cases of special need.

Mr. Amory: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that wages have risen 73 per cent. since before the war, and still seem to be rising, and that these supplementary pensions and allowances seem miles out of line with today's prices? Will he look into the matter to see if something can be done quickly?

Mr. Griffiths: As I have indicated, the Board will have an opportunity of considering new regulations in the very near future, for incorporation in the Act, which comes into operation on 5th July. In the meantime, the Board are making a special investigation into the needs of aged people, and in the last few months lump sum grants have been made in 124,000 cases, amounting to £300,000, to help aged people over the winter months.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever heard of a thing called the vicious spiral?

Mr. Granville Sharp: Can my right hon. Friend say what action the Board have taken during the last few months to give additional allowances to meet the increased cost of fuel?

Mr. Griffiths: These are special grants made to pensioners for special needs, including fuel.

Unemployment Benefit

Mr. Hollis: asked the Minister of National Insurance for what reason Mr. Rideout, of 5, Sunny Hill Lane, Oare, near Marlborough, when applying for an increased unemployment benefit in respect of his child, was required to state his parents' income.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As I explained in my letter of 31st December to the hon. Member, the child was living with Mr. Rideout's parents, and the information referred to was, therefore, necessary in

order to determine whether the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935, were satisfied. Mr. Rideout has been informed that he has a right of appeal to the Court of Referees, but he has not exercised that right.

Mr. Hollis: Has not the general impression been spread abroad that the Socialist party are opposed to means tests, and will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to correct that false impression?

Mr. Griffiths: The new Act does not come into operation until next July; this is under the old Act.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he has considered the stoppage of unemployment benefit to Miss Joyce Jones, of Ferndale, Rhondda; and what is the justification for it.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The hon. Member has no doubt now received a letter dated 8th January, 1948, from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service about this case. Miss Jones has appealed to the Court of Referees against the disallowance of benefit, and I will send a copy of the court's decision to the hon. Member when it is received.

Mr. Hogg: Does it not really amount to this, that because this girl wants a place of work a little nearer than five miles from her home, since her mother is a widow and her grandmother an invalid, she is now being stopped unemployment benefit in order to gratify the callousness of the Ministry of Labour?

Mr. Griffiths: Since this case is the subject of an appeal awaiting decision by the Court of Referees, I think we better await the result.

Mr. George Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for East Rhondda (Mr. Mainwaring) took up this case weeks ago, and therefore it is quite unnecessary for the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) to amble into Wales?

Mr. Griffiths: I think the Rhondda Valley will be interested in this new interest taken in it.

Ministry's Staff

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: asked the, Minister of National Insurance what pro-


cedure was followed in selecting personnel from among the employees of the Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company at Treborth Hall, Bangor, Caernarvonshire, for appointments under his Ministry.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The procedure followed was that recommended by the Approved Society Staffing Advisory Committee, which I set up to advise me on the terms of absorption of approved society staffs generally. This Committee recommended that the Civil Service Commission should interview and grade the societies' permanent staff, who should receive priority for employment in this Department, and that employees not on the permanent staff should be interviewed by my Department, and should be considered for such vacancies as might be available for them on the temporary staff of the Ministry. This procedure has been followed. I have called for a full report in regard to the temporary staff, and when it is available I shall be glad to discuss the position with my hon. Friend and with the hon. Member for Caernarvon Boroughs (Mr. Price-White), who has written me on the same matter.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, in addition to the interview by the Civil Service Commissioners, they are also furnished with reports from the approved societies concerned on the merits and qualifications of the applicants?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, Sir, such reports are produced, and each Civil Service selection committee has representatives of the approved societies and trade unions on it.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Oxford (Light Industries)

Mr. Hogg: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has considered the resolution of the City of Oxford Conservative and Unionist Association Executive Council viewing with alarm the notices of termination of employment from local works and requesting the appropriate authorities to take all the steps in their power to explore the possibility of attracting other light industries to Oxford, in view of the possibility of widespread unemployment in the city and its immediate neighbourhood; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. Isaacs): Yes, Sir. A number of workers were discharged by local firms last autumn, but many of these have since been reinstated or re-absorbed into other employment. As the demands for workers in the area greatly exceed the numbers registered as unemployed, there does not appear to be any special need to attract light industries to the city in order to provide additional employment, and I should not feel justified in suggesting that any steps should be taken to this end.

Mr. Hogg: While understanding the reasons behind the right hon. Gentleman's reply, can we not be assured that some rather longer-term planning is taking place in regard to a city which is slightly unbalanced — [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"]—in regard to its industrial development?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, the difficulty is, of course, that Oxford has in recent years rapidly developed as an industrial area, but at the moment we have no doubt at all about the possibility of absorbing the unemployed there. At the moment there are 363 registered as unemployed for 1,465 vacancies.

Dr. Segal: Will my right hon. Friend explain that this is one of the benefits of private enterprise?

Directed Person

Mr. Hogg: asked the Minister of Labour why Mr. John Selfridge, of 65, Clydesdale Street, Hamilton, was directed to the mines on the 10th December, 1947, despite a doctor's certificate.

Mr. Isaacs: Mr. Selfridge went into coalmining as an alternative to service in His Majesty's Forces. He subsequently left without notice, and, as he refused to go back voluntarily, he was issued with a direction after being pronounced fit for coalmining employment by an independent medical referee. He appealed against the direction, and the local appeal board dismissed his appeal. As, however, a further medical certificate had been submitted by Mr. Selfridge from his own doctor, he was again examined by an independent medical referee, who on this occasion pronounced him unfit for coal-mining employment. The direction was thereupon withdrawn.

Mr. Hogg: Does not this entirely illustrate the folly of directing people against their will?

Mr. Isaacs: It may also indicate the folly of relying always on a doctor's opinion.

Mr. Hogg: On three doctors' opinions

European Volunteer Workers, Heywood

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Minister of Labour, what plans his Department has for providing hostel accommodation for European Volunteer Workers in the Heywood district; and when he expects that these plans will be put into effect.

Mr. Isaacs: Despite careful search of the district, no suitable premises have yet been found. The premises I had in mind are required for training purposes, but the search is continuing.

Mr. Greenwood: If my right hon. Friend is unable to find existing premises, will he discuss with other Departments the possibility of making hutments available for this purpose?

Mr. Isaacs: That possibility has not been overlooked.

Domestic Workers

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Labour how many foreign girls, including those from Eire, have come to this country in 1947 as domestic servants or hospital staff, whose fares have been paid, and who have now been placed in Government or local authority employment.

Mr. Isaacs: During 1947, 3,805 women were brought to this country and placed in "priority" domestic employment at the cost of the Exchequer under schemes for the recruitment of displaced persons from the Continent. Of these 2,439 went to hospitals, but my records do not distinguish between the types of hospitals—Government, local authority or voluntary—employing them. Women from Eire do not, of course, fall under schemes relating to foreign workers. The number of women recruited in 1947 through my Dublin Liaison Office for hospital domestic work in this country was 260 and for hostels 190. Employers are responsible for payment of fares of women from Eire taking up other types of domestic employment.

Sir W. Smithers: Cannot the Minister realise that private individuals who engage foreign persons to help them in their homes are entitled to some consideration and that the Minister of Labour or the Government should not take those people, for whom employers have paid to come into the country, into Government service?

Mr. Isaacs: I have no information to justify that statement. If the hon. Gentleman will let me have particulars, I will look into them.

Mr. Tolley: How many have already returned to their homes?

Mr. Isaacs: In regard to the displaced persons, I should say none. With regard to the people from Eire, I should require notice of the question.

Joint Production Committees, Scotland

Mr. Willis: asked the Minister of Labour what progress has been made in Scotland in the establishment of joint production committees industry.

Mr. Isaacs: I am glad to observe a steady growth of interest in this subject among employers and workers generally, and I am in communication with the two sides of a number of industries on it. I am afraid, however, there is t present no exact information as to the rate of development in Scotland elsewhere.

Hotel Workers (Recruitment)

Mr. Roland Robinson: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has now considered the letter addressed to his Department on 16th December, 1947, by the Association of Health and Pleasure Resorts calling attention to the difficulties which may be caused in the resorts by catering workers being directed under the Control of Engagement Order, 1947, to other industries during the off-season; and what reply he proposes to give to the request that catering establishments at health and pleasure resorts be included in the schedule of essential undertakings.

Mr. Isaacs: The matter is at present under consideration, and I hope to announce in the course of the next week or so the circumstances in which hotels, etc., will be able to recruit workers for the holiday seasons.

Higher Appointments Bureaus

Mr. John E. Haire: asked the Minister of Labour if he is satisfied that his higher appointments bureaux continue to fulfil a useful function; and if he will give relevant figures for the past year.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate the relevant figures for the past year in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Haire: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that perhaps these bureaux are now overstaffed in view of the appointments offered by them, or, alternatively, would he not encourage employers to make more use of them?

Mr. Isaacs: I do not agree that they are overstaffed. As for the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I would be glad if we could get more employers to make more use of them.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Will the right hon. Gentleman include the relevant figures so far as persons from India and Burma are concerned? How many of them have been placed?

Mr. Isaacs: If the hon. Member will give me notice, I will see what I can do to answer his question, but they are not in the figures which I have prepared for the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the figures:


1. Technical and Scientific Register



Enrolments
6,719


Vacancies notified
8,595


Vacancies filled
2,808


Graduates allocated
2,775


2. Appointments Register



New and revived registrations
72,905


Vacancies notified
30,811


Registrants placed
13,765


3. Further Education and Training Scheme


Applications received
58,001


Awards made
48,030


4. Business Training



Applications received
7,385


Students completed General Course
4,183


Further courses arranged with firms
2,620

In addition a considerable volume of work was done by way of resettlement advice to ex-Service personnel and advice

to persons seeking careers of a professional nature. Special attention was devoted to the training and placing of disabled persons.

Disabled Persons

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Minister of Labour if, in view of the continued evidence that the obligation to employ a percentage of disabled men is not fully appreciated by all employers, he will require the percentage of disabled men to be stated in the employment returns.

Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir; the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act gives me no power to call for such returns but only requires employers to keep appropriate records. The statistical returns of numbers in employment are required for other purposes and could not properly be used to ascertain whether employers are complying with their obligations under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act.

Mr. Shepherd: What is the Minister doing to notify employers of their liability, because obviously a considerable number of employers are employing more than the normal percentage while others are not even aware of their obligations in this respect?

Mr. Isaacs: A great deal of work is being done in notifying employers. In every case now in which we are not satisfied from the information we have that employers are complying, a visit is paid to them, and their books are inspected. The problem is that many employers would be willing to take a disabled person but have no vacancy, and they are not expected to dismiss an able-bodied man to make room for a disabled one; but they have given a promise that as soon as a vacancy occurs they will comply with our request.

Major Legge-Bourke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that several Government Departments, including the War Office, are at the present moment declaring redundant, men wearing the King's Badge—that is, disabled men? Will he look into that side of it, and not merely confine himself to private employers?

Mr. Isaacs: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will give me particulars, I will look into them, but the answer I have given relates to the 3 per cent. quota.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Council of Ex-Secretaries of State

Sir William Darling: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many meetings have been held of the Council of Former Secretaries of State for Scotland; and what was the date of the most recent meeting of this body.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): The Council of ex-Secretaries of State held 16 meetings, the last of which took place on 16th February, 1945, during the Coalition Government.

Hydro-Electric Project

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will give an undertaking that the Scottish Hydro-Electric Project will not be affected in 1948 by any revision arising from the White Paper on Capital Investment in 1948.

Mr. Woodburn: I regret I cannot add to the statement of the Government's intentions as set out in the White Paper and in the Debate thereon on 18th December.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the great hopes of this undertaking which were encouraged by the former Secretary of State, will the present Secretary of State see that nothing is allowed to happen which will in any way hold up the work that is going on in connection with the hydro-electric project?

Mr. Woodburn: The work is going on steadily and the difficulties in completing the work on this scheme are more likely to be physical than administrative.

Agricultural Machinery Output

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps are being taken to increase the output of agricultural machinery in Scotland.

Mr. Woodburn: The production programmes of Scottish manufacturers of agricultural machinery provide for a substantial overall increase in output in 1948. The Government have increased substantially the allocations of steel to these manufacturers and will continue to do everything possible to assist them in implementing their plans.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Secretary of State aware that one of the oldest agricultural implement factories in Scotland is suffering from the handicap of a lack of skilled labour and a lack of material? Is he also aware that a new American factory is also contemplated, and will he see that there is co-ordination of these activities in order to help the agricultural industry?

Mr. Woodburn: I will look into any point about the supply of material to the factory which my hon. Friend has in mind, and if it is at all possible we will do what we can to put that right.

Major McCallum: Will the right hon. Gentleman do what he can to press forward the provision of spare parts for agricultural machinery, the absence of which is immobilising much machinery in the industry?

Mr. Woodburn: Yes, but it is always a difficult problem to settle the proportion of spare parts and new machines.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House, in regard to the new machinery manufactured in Scotland, that what will be required for use by farmers in Scotland will be provided, and not exported?

Mr. Woodburn: That would be a dangerous procedure, because England might refuse to give us our share of machines from the South—[Interruption.]

Mr. McKinlay: On a point of Order, Is it in Order for a Member to say audibly in this House "To hell with the English"?

Mr. Speaker: It is not in Order but it I did not hear it that makes a great difference.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: If I did say anything rather foolish, I naturally withdraw it.

Administration

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is yet in a position to make a statement on the administration of Scottish affairs.

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now make a statement on the steps he proposes to take to secure a greater measure of Scottish control over Scottish affairs.

Mr. Woodburn: I hope to make a statement on this subject in the near future.

Mr. Willis: Will my right hon. Friend say when "the near future" is, as this has been the subject of deliberation for 18 months now?

Mr. Woodburn: About 10 days.

Mr. Charles Williams: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his administration in Scotland is as bad as the Government's administration in this country, which is most deplorable?

Sir W. Darling: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind consultations with the former Secretaries of State?

Mr. Woodburn: That raises constitutional difficulties in a non-Coalition Government.

Shop Premises Tenure

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he intends to introduce legislation to implement the suggestions contained in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Tenure of Shop Premises in Scotland.

Mr. Woodburn: The Committee of Inquiry into the tenure of shop premises in Scotland did not recommend any immediate legislative action and I am not aware of any change in circumstances since the Committee reported. The matter is, however, being kept under review.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Has the Secretary of State considered the suggestion that there might be legislation of a temporary character?

Mr. Woodburn: If the hon. and gallant Member will read the Report, he will see that there is really no justification for legislation at the moment, and that unless something does arise, it could not justifiably be brought before the House of Commons.

Mr. McGovern: In view of the agitation that went on regarding these shops, and the Report which has now been presented, is there any likelihood of a Debate, as some of us have strong opinions on the matter?

Mr. Woodburn: If anyone can produce facts which would justify any action, we

would consider action, but the Committee was very broad and well-informed, and it could not find justification for action.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that just now threats are being made in Scotland, particularly in industrial centres like Glasgow, to put out people who have built up businesses, because the premises in which those businesses are situated have been bought, and those people are being asked to pay a high figure for the purchase of their shops?

Mr. Woodburn: I am aware of reports of that kind, but the Committee which was set up to inquire into this matter took all the evidence, and the proposals were not such as to justify a general conclusion being drawn.

Mrs. Jean Mann: Did not that Committee recommend, where tenants were being asked to buy, that if the price was extortionate the tenant should have recourse to the sheriff, who would fix a reasonable rent? Did not they also recommend that in the event of the sale of business premises, the tenant should have preference in buying—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady cannot discuss the whole Report on a Question which only asked about whether legislation is to be introduced.

Mrs. Mann: I am sorry. Did not those recommendations indicate that the Committee recommended legislation?

Mr. Woodburn: As I replied before to my hon. Friend, the Committee did not recommend legislation. That was the Committee's conclusion.

Road Maintenance, Perthshire,

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland, in view of the Government's proposal to reduce labour for road maintenance, what steps he intends to take for the proper upkeep of roads in Perthshire for which he is responsible.

Mr. Woodburn: The decision to which the hon. Member refers will not, so far as I am aware, affect any estate roads for the maintenance of which I am responsible.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that local people are very disturbed about what they consider to be a considerable reduction in


the upkeep of roads, and could he give them something a little more comforting, so that they may know what the situation really is?

Mr. Woodburn: I am afraid that I am not responsible for the roads referred to. The Minister of Transport is responsible.

Linseed (Seed Distribution)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what arrangements he has made to distribute linseed seeds to farmers.

Mr. Woodburn: Pedigreed linseed seed is being imported from Canada in sufficient quantity to meet estimated requirements for sowing in Great Britain in 1948. This seed will be distributed through the usual trade channels who do not anticipate any difficulty in meeting the Scottish demand.

Mr. Rankin: Arising from that answer, will the right hon. Gentleman indicate exactly what arrangements are being made to distribute the seed?

Mr. Woodburn: Through the ordinary merchants, a source well known to all people interested.

Bankruptcies

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how many persons in Scotland were declared bankrupt in 1947; and what was the average number yearly between 1919 and 1939;
(2) how many farmers in Scotland were declared bankrupt in 1947; and what was the average number yearly between 1919 and 1939.

Mr. Woodburn: The number of persons declared bankrupt by the Court in Scotland in 1947 was 25, including four farmers. The corresponding average annual numbers between 1919 and 1939 were 229 and 17 respectively.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister explain the relative prosperity of Scotland?

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Is not bankruptcy now a State monopoly?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Widowers (Re-marriage)

Sir Richard Acland: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will make

a statement as to what is the position of a war disability pensioner who, having become a widower, marries for the second time.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Buchanan): If he is in receipt of pension at the standard rate an allowance is payable in respect of his second wife.

Widows

Mr. Odey: asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in view of the rise in the cost of living, he is now prepared to consider a commensurate increase in the war widows' pension.

Mr. Buchanan: Substantial increases in the pensions of war widows have been made since the outbreak of the recent war. At that time the pension of the 1939 war widow of a private soldier was 22S. 6d. a week if she was over 40 years of age, or had children or was incapable of self-support, and otherwise 15s. 6d. a week. The comparable rates today are 35s. and 20S. Similarly the allowance for each child of a widow was then 5s. a week and is now us. a week. A rent allowance up to a maximum of 15s. a week is also now payable to the widow with children where her rent and rates exceed 8s. a week. Thus, the 1939 war widow of a private soldier with two children and a rent of 16s. a week would in 1939 have received 32s. 6d. a week, whereas today she receives 65s. a week apart from any allowance under the Family Allowances Act. The rates of widows' pension will, of course, be considered in connection with any general review of the war pensions provisions.

Mr. Odey: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the hardship in 1948 of endeavouring to live on 35s. a week, and in view of the debt which this country owes to these women, would he give urgent consideration to this matter?

Mr. Buchanan: In 1939, when the hon. Gentleman's friends were in power, they measured it at a very low rate, and on comparative figures the rates are now well above any other advance. I think that, whoever else has a grumble, it is certainly not hon. Gentlemen on the other side.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the increase; since 1939 have kept pace with the increase in the cost of living?

Mr. Buchanan: In this particular case, they are far in excess of it. I am not saying the rate is too much, but so far as the percentage is concerned, it is far in excess.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Married Quarters

Mr. Charles Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War (1) how many married quarters at the latest convenient date were appropriated for purposes other than family accommodation; what these purposes were; and what steps are contemplated to make them available for their intended purpose; and
(2) how many married quarters at the latest convenient date were damaged and requiring repairs to make them habitable; what steps are being taken to deal with their repair; and by what date it is expected that they will be rendered habitable.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell): In the United Kingdom at 1st January, 757 married quarters were used for purposes other than family accommodation. The purposes for which these quarters have been misappropriated vary considerably, but the majority are to house A.T.S. for whom no other suitable accommodation exists. The quarters will be put to their proper use as alternative accommodation for the present occupants is found and as the married quarters are reconditioned to their original use. One thousand two hundred and fifty quarters required repairing. This has been given priority, but progress depends largely on the availability of labour and materials. It is not possible to give an accurate forecast of the date when this work will be completed, but it is hoped that nearly all repairs will be carried out during the next twelve months.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Do I understand from the reply that the right hon. Gentleman gives the equivalent of a pledge that nobody will be evacuated from married quarters until alternative accommodation has been found for them?

Mr. Shinwell: I could not give any such pledge, but we do take every possible precaution.

Meritorious Service Medal (Annuity)

Mr. Charles Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War at what date the sum of £10 was fixed for the annuity associated with the Meritorious Service Medal; and what steps are proposed to bring the sum into relation with the changes in the cost of living since then.

Mr. Shinwell: The maximum of £10 was fixed by Royal Warrant in November 1920. Subject to certain conditions the annuities may be increased under the provisions of the Pensions (Increase) Warrants, 1944 and 1947.

Mr. Smith: Can the Secretary of State for War say what increase there can be in the standard rate of £10?

Mr. Shinwell: Subject to means, we can add another £4, but it must be understood that this is not regarded as maintenance; it is merely a grant to deserving old soldiers. Maintenance is provided out of social insurance legislation.

Burley Moor

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that it is proposed to establish a permanent small arms range on Burley Moor which is part of the famous Ilkley Moor, that such a range will affect 500 acres of moorland, and close two popular footpaths, as well as adversely affecting the water rights, grazing rights and sporting rights; and will he take steps to keep this moor open at all times for the use of the people who live in the nearby towns and cities.

Mr. Shinwell: I am aware of the proposal, which will be considered by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Services Land Requirements who are awaiting the regional report on the case. The Committee will take into account the effect on local interests and amenities.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Will the right hon. Gentleman impress upon the Committee that when the Territorials wish to use the range at weekends, it is just the time when it is required by the general public of the cities of Leeds and Bradford; and also that Ilkley Moor is hardly available at all, because of unexploded bombs?

Mr. Shinwell: This site consists of a series of small-arms ranges, which have been in use, I understand, since 1914.

Stores (Palestine and Egypt)

Mr. A. R. W. Low: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the tonnage of Army stores and equipment now in Palestine and Egypt; and how much is to be evacuated prior to August, 1948.

Mr. Shinwell: The total tonnage of Army stores and equipment now in Palestine and Egypt is 1,550,000 tons. It is proposed to retain 623,000 tons, of which 50,000 tons of material in short supply will be returned to the United Kingdom and the remainder will be used to meet the needs of the Forces in the Middle East. The other 927,000 tons are being offered to the Ministry of Supply for disposal. It is hoped that the stores in Palestine which we wish to retain will be moved by August, 1948.

Mr. Low: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not a planned evacuation of these stores from Palestine is being maintained?

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman knows the circumstances. I should say, "Yes."

Donington Park

Mr. Martin Lindsay: asked the Secretary of State for War when he intends to relinquish Donington Park.

Mr. Shinwell: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Hale) on 3rd November last, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

War Graves (Relatives' Visits)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now in a position to make a statement as to the provision of facilities for visits by relatives to war graves in Germany.

Mr. Shinwell: As I said in reply to the hon. Member on 4th November, difficulties of transport and accommodation preclude any arrangements being made at present. I am, however, keeping the matter under review.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman not say something more definite? Is he aware that two and a half years have elapsed since the end of the war in Europe, and surely it has been possible to make some arrangements for these very necessary facilities in that time?

Mr. Shinwell: Apart from the difficulties of transport, accommodation and currency, I am bound to say, from my experience and observation recently in Germany, that much of the work in the cemeteries is not yet completed. I should prefer to see rather a better state of completion before coming to any definite decision.

Mr. M. Lindsay: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there are many cemeteries in France which are completed, and as it would be impossible to arrange for all the families to go at the same time, could not a start be made now in a small way?

Mr. Shinwell: I should like to assist in this direction. I would not place any obstacle in the way, but there are physical difficulties which, at the moment, cannot be surmounted.

Parked Vehicles, Germany

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War how many of the vehicles parked on the Hamburg-Bremen Autobahn have been deprived of one or all their wheels; and how many, wheeled vehicles there are altogether in that park with or without wheels.

Mr. Shinwell: No records are available of the number of vehicles on this autobahn with or without wheels, respectively. The total number of vehicles at present held in the park is 9,650.

Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I visited the park recently and found that about 50 per cent, of the vehicles are without wheels? What does he propose to do about it?

Mr. Shinwell: If my hon. Friend, during his visit to the autobahn, detected how many wheels were absent, he has got the information.

Mr. Stokes: Yes, but is my right hon. Friend aware that I have raised this matter before, and that literally millions of pounds worth of stuff is going to waste there because nothing is done? When does he propose to do anything about it?

Mr. Shinwell: I have made very careful inquiries into these allegations about waste, and I think they are grossly, exaggerated.

Mr. M. Lindsay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been no change in the situation for two years now, to my certain knowledge?

Mr. Shinwell: All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that his knowledge is not certain.

Mr. Stokes: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Accident, Saxelby

Mr. Anthony Nutting: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for War, whether his attention has been called to the recent disaster which occurred at Saxelby, Leicestershire, when an explosion of mine fuses which were being tested before removal resulted in the death of three members of the Pioneer Corps (two of whom were under 20 years of age) and the serious injury of some 20 more; whether he is satisfied that all the personnel employed on this dangerous work were adequately trained; whether he will give instructions that in future no soldier under 20 years of age shall be employed in this type of work.

Mr. Shinwell: A court of inquiry has been convened and I will write to the hon. Member when I have received its report. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my deep regret to the relatives of the men who lost their lives as a result of this accident.

Mr. Nutting: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the boys killed in this disaster was a raw recruit with only seven weeks' service, and that when, at the inquest, the question was asked whether all were adequately trained for the job, the answer was given that all were warned of the danger; and is he further aware that the answer he has given is no answer whatsoever, and that if a young man of 18 is warned that a job is dangerous, it is tantamount to asking him to do it?

Mr. Shinwell: A matter of that sort would be the subject of consideration by the court of inquiry. We have considerable difficulty in these matters. First of all, these boys are operating under skilled specialists who are trained in matters of this sort, in addition to which, as 70 to 80 per cent. of the men consist of National Service intake, it is quite impossible to be stringent from the standpoint of age.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONERS OF WAR

Egypt

Mr. Douglas Marshall: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the exact number of German prisoners of war in Egypt at the moment.

Mr. Shinwell: At 3rst December, 50,158.

Mr. Marshall: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate any date when these prisoners will be repatriated?

Mr. Shinwell: We are hoping to complete the task some time at the back end of the year.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will these prisoners be given the same opportunity voluntarily to remain in Allied hands as alien civilian workers, as are the prisoners in this country?

Mr. Shinwell: The point is interesting, but it was not contained in the Question.

Colonel Ropner: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether there is any scheme of repatriation, and is it being kept up to date?

Mr. Shinwell: What we are doing is based on a scheme.

Civilian Workers

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Secretary of State for War why no issue of civilian clothing, or clothing coupons, is made to prisoners of war released in this country for work as civilians in agriculture.

Mr. Shinwell: Prisoners released for work as civilians keep the clothing they had as prisoners. Under recent arrangements they also are given 21 clothing coupons when the contract to work is signed and thereafter an issue on the scale allowed for non-resident civilians. An additional issue of 10 coupons annually allowed to industrial workers may be made through the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Secretary of State for War why prisoners of war released in this country as civilians for work in agriculture are not allowed to change their savings of camp money into sterling.

Mr. Shinwell: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) on 16th December, of which I am sending him a copy.

Repatriation

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War how many prisoners of war were repatriated from Great Britain and the Middle East, respectively, during December; and how many are expected to return from the Middle East during January.

Mr. Shinwell: Twenty thousand seven hundred and two and 1,916 German prisoners of war were repatriated from Great Britain and the Middle East respectively during December, 1947, and it is hoped to repatriate 2,365 from the Middle East during January, 1948. I should like to take this opportunity of announcing that during the first quarter of 1948 it is proposed to repatriate 74,000 prisoners of war from Great Britain and it is hoped to complete their repatriation during July. The Middle East presents a more difficult problem but it is intended to repatriate 15,000 in each of the first two quarters of 1948 and I hope to complete repatriation at an earlier date than was originally visualised.

Mr. Stokes: May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am as pleased with that reply as I was displeased with the one before?

Mr. Shinwell: In that event, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his notice to raise the other matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Driberg: While welcoming very warmly the new announcement by my right hon. Friend—[Interruption]—andthe return to this House of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill)—may I ask him whether the rate of repatriation from the Middle East also will be speeded up if more transport becomes available?

Mr. Shinwell: I also am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman has been repatriated. In reply to my hon. Friend, we are pushing on with that as fast as we can.

Mr. Hollis: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement that it is hoped to complete repatriation at a date earlier than has previously been envisaged, can he tell us that date?

Mr. Shinwell: I said "at an earlier date."

INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Prime Minister whether, in an effort to prevent any further deterioration in the international situation, he will take steps to bring about an early conference between himself and the heads of the other major Allied States.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): While I am naturally anxious to take any steps which could lead to an improvement of the international situation, I do not feel that a conference of the kind suggested would be likely to advance matters at the present time.

Mr. Keeling: Would the Prime Minister make it clear that, contrary to the suggestion in the Question, the Prime Minister in this country, and indeed in France and Russia, is not the head of the State?

The Prime Minister: indicated assent.

NATIONALISED UNDERTAKINGS (APPOINTMENTS)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Prime Minister to state the names of individuals who have been appointed to more than one national or regional board of a nationalised undertaking or State corporation of a commercial character; and the nature of such duplicate appointments, together with details of individual salaries and allowances paid.

The Prime Minister: Five gentlemen are at present members of the boards of more than one undertaking of the kind described. I am circulating particulars in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Erroll: Is there a shortage of "boys for the jobs"?

Following are the particulars:

1. Mr. George Gibson.

Chairman, North Western Electricity Board (salary £4,000 p.a.), and a member of the Court of Directors of the Bank of England. In respect of the latter office he receives no salary.

2. Mr. Tom Johnston.

As Chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board (salary £1,000 p.a.,


not drawn by present holder), he is ex-offico a part-time member of the British Electricity Authority (salary £,000 p.a., not drawn by present holder).

3. Sir Wilfrid Ayre.

Part-time member of the Iron and Steel Board (salary £1,000) and of the Railway Executive (salary £750).

4. Alderman . . Hayward.

Part-time member of B.E.A.C. (salary £1,000) and of the London Electricity Board (salary £750).

5. Mr. A. V. Symons.

Part-time member of the Cotton Board (unpaid) and of the Raw Cotton Commission (salary £500 p.a.).

Except in the case of Mr. Tom Johnston (who receives an expense allowance of £200 p.a. in lieu of salary) no allowances are paid to any of the foregoing, who may, however, claim reimbursement of expenditure incurred on the business of the undertaking.

MINISTRIES (M.P.s' COMMUNICATIONS)

Mr. Butcher: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that instructions have been issued by the Ministry of Food that communications received by local Food Executive Officers from Members of Parliament are to be referred to headquarters for reply, while the Ministry of Fuel and Power have sent a circular to Members of Parliament inviting them to communicate with regional officers; and what steps he is taking to ensure uniformity in this matter amongst the various Ministries.

The Prime Minister: The duties of Departments differ greatly, and their organisation cannot be uniform. Channels of communication cannot be fixed by a general rule.

UNESTABLISHED CIVIL SERVANTS

Mr. M. Lindsay: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the percentage of unestablished civil servants.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): 58.75 per cent. of non-industrial civil servants as at 1st October, 1947, were unestablished.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Silver Coinage

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware of the shortage of silver in the North Staffordshire area; that large firms are finding it difficult to make up wages; why this is so; and if he will rectify it.

Mr. Edward Evans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the shortage of silver coinage in Suffolk and that inconvenience is caused thereby; what are the reasons for the shortage; and what steps he is taking to remedy the condition.

Sir S. Cripps: While I am aware that seasonal demands have continued longer than is usual over the turn of the year, I have no reason to believe that the position is worse in the areas mentioned by my hon. Friends than in other populous areas. Every endeavour is, however, being made to meet genuine demand for coin, and generally there are indications of a slight improvement.

Mr. Harold Davies: Has this position anything to do with the hoarding of silver by black marketeers; secondly, is the Minister aware that large firms are experiencing a real difficulty in North Staffordshire in paying out wages at the weekend?

Sir S. Cripps: As regards the first supplementary question, I should hardly think that anybody who wants to hoard large sums of money would hoard silver, or the substitute for it.

Mr. Davies: They are doing that.

Sir S. Cripps: There is no evidence of that. If the hon. Member will let me have the names and addresses of the people, I will see to it. Secondly, the position is probably difficult in North Staffordshire at present, but it is getting better.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that there are nothing but seasonal influences at work? Certainly, the shortage would seem to be far more acute than it has been in previous years.

Sir S. Cripps: It is more acute. We cannot find any other except seasonal reasons. We are watching the position very carefully, and if there is anything further we can do we will do it.

Sir Peter Bennett: Is the Chancellor aware that in some cases the only way to pay wages in large establishments is by the purchase of postal orders, and some firms have been purchasing them by the thousand pounds' worth recently? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take steps to see that they are made legal tender, as they were during the war? Great inconvenience is caused when they are not accepted as currency.

Sir S. Cripps: I quite appreciate the inconvenience. If people will be sensible about this coinage and put it into circulation—somebody has got it; the money is there—then other people will get out of their difficulties.

Purchase Tax (Car Radios)

Sir John Mellor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Commissioners of Customs and Excise informed S. Smith and Sons (England) Limited by letter, dated 14th August, 1946, that car radios were chargeable with Purchase Tax; when did the Commissioners discover the error of this ruling; how much money was received by them in consequence of the error; and how much has been retained.

Sir S. Cripps: At the date mentioned car radios were generally regarded as chargeable with Purchase Tax as "wireless receiving sets of the domestic or portable type." On 23rd May, 1947, in view of certain doubts that had been expressed, the Commissioners advised the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Ltd., that they were prepared to regard these sets as outside the scope of this heading. The question has now been settled beyond doubt by a Treasury Order; I regret that the other information sought is not available.

Sir J. Mellor: What moral justification has the Treasury for retaining this money which was obtained by misrepresentation of the law?

Sir S. Cripps: It was not obtained by misrepresentation of the law. It was paid by everybody under the belief that the law included this type. There was a doubt as to that, and the Treasury gave the benefit of the doubt to the manufacturers. Since then, the tax has not been charged.

Sir J. Mellor: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that no reputable private firm would keep money in those circumstances?

Sir S. Cripps: The hon. Member will appreciate that it would be quite impossible, even if this money were repaid, as it would have to be, from October, 1940, to trace the people who had paid it—the purchasers and not the manufacturers.

Sir J. Mellor: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that these car radios were only sold t private individuals from the beginning of 1946, and, therefore, there is no substance in his answer? I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment on Monday next.

Transport Stock (Redemption Date)

Mr. Keeling: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what reason he fixed the redemption date of the Transport Stock as 1978–88.

Mr. Hollis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what principle the redemption date for British Transport Stock was fixed at 1978–88.

Sir S. Cripps: This and the other terms of the Stock were settled in accordance with Section 89 (2) of the Transport Act.

Mr. Keeling: Is the Chancellor not aware of the widely-held and responsible opinion that a shorter life for this new Stock would have been fairer to the million-or-so railway shareholders and more in accordance with the terms of the Act?

Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir, I am not.

National Coal Board (Magazine)

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a profit or loss arose from the preparation and publication by the Central Office of Information and His Majesty's Stationery Office of the first six issues of the National Coal Board's magazine entitled "Coal"; how such profit or loss will be accounted; and why these six issues purported to be produced for the National Coal Board, which accepted no financial responsibility.

Sir S. Cripps: A loss of £4,630 arose from the preparation and publication of the first six issues of the magazine "Coal."


With the exception of certain costs of the Central Office of Information, the expenditure will be charged against the Vote of His Majesty's Stationery Office and all the receipts will accrue to that Vote. The magazine has been produced throughout for the National Coal Board in the sense that the Coal Board has been responsible for the editorial policy. Financial responsibility for this and certain other mining publicity was taken over by the Coal Board from the Ministry of Fuel and Power on 1st October, 1947.

Sir J. Mellor: Before 1st October, why should this concealed subsidy have been paid to the National Coal Board at the expense of the taxpayer?

Sir S. Cripps: It was thought valuable for the purpose of trying to get more coal produced.

Sir J. Mellor: Have we not always been given to understand that the National Coal Board is a separate financial entity?

Local Savings Committees (Expenses)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the weekly cost and total for 1947 of the expenses, including advertising, of publicity concerts and dances of the National Savings committees; and how were these expenses met.

Sir S. Cripps: The total cost of all social functions organised by local savings committees in England and Wales during the calendar year 1947, was £26,233, an average weekly cost of £504. These expenses were paid from the Vote of the National Savings Committee. To obtain separate figures for expenditure, including advertising, on concerts and dances would involve analysing over 1,300 local savings committee accounts. This would take up a disproportionate amount of official time.

Sir W. Smithers: Does the Chancellor think it right that the savings committees should expend the savings of people who are still willing to help the Government, and that the money should be spent so as to obtain more money for the Government so that they might enact and implement their disastrous experiments?

Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir.

Vehicle Licences (Application Forms)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the annual cost of paper, printing and distributing application forms for renewal of licences for mechanically-propelled road vehicles.

Sir S. Cripps: £6,138.

Sir W. Smithers: Does the Chancellor think that, in view of the abolition of the basic petrol ration, this expenditure is really necessary?

Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir.

Capital Levy

Mr. Erroll: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an assurance that the Government have no intention of introducing a capital levy.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the recent advocacy of a capital levy by supporters of the Government, with its consequent discouragement of thrift, is likely to have an adverse effect on the National Savings Campaign; and if he will make it clear that the Government have no intention of taking confiscatory action of this nature.

Sir S. Cripps: The hon. Member cannot expect me to deal in advance with matters of budgetary policy.

Mr. Stanley: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise, in this particular instance, how impossible these rumours are going to make the task of those of us who are asked and who wish to support the National Savings Movement?

Sir S. Cripps: I am very sorry, but that does not make it any more possible to forecast budgetary policy.

Major Bruce: Is it not a fact that, in the opinion of the Parliamentary Committee which sat upon this subject, the introduction of a single levy would have no possible effect whatever on National Savings?

Sir S. Cripps: I am quite aware of that.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Pending the introduction of the Budget, can the Chancellor assure the House that the


rumours on this subject have no greater foundation than the utterances of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury during the last week?

Sir S. Cripps: No greater foundation, in fact, than any other rumours.

Military Forces, Palestine (Cost)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the over-all cost of maintaining military forces and supplies in Palestine from August, 1945, to the nearest date.

Sir S. Cripps: About £100 million, between 1st July, 1945, and 30th November, 1947.

Mr. Piratin: In view of the present state of affairs in Palestine, and the waste of this very great sum of money, will the Chancellor assure the House that his weight will be used in the Cabinet to ensure that no future money shall be expended in other parts of the world, on similar catastrophes?

Public Works Loans (Interest)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement giving the reason for increasing the rate of interest to be paid by local authorities to the Public Works Loan Board from 2½ to 3 per cent.

Sir S. Cripps: The present rates charged are 2 per cent. for loans of less than five years, 2½ per cent. for loans of five to 15 years and 3 per cent. for loans for 15 years and longer. The rates of interest charged to local authorities are fixed from time to time to correspond broadly with Government borrowing rates for comparable periods.

Mr. Piratin: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer explain what new circumstances have arisen during the last few months, since the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the very welcome reduction in interest charges, to make it necessary to inflict this further burden on local authorities?

Sir S. Cripps: The Government borrowing rates for comparable periods have altered.

Mr. Piratin: This is a very important dispute, and I am sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister

of Health will both be receiving many resolutions from local authorities, similar to that which was passed by my local authority last night. Can the Chancellor find an opportunity of making a full statement on this matter to the House?

Sir S. Cripps: I do not think it requires any further explanation. It is a perfectly simple position.

SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY

Mr. Rankin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what agreement has been reached with the United States of America, or is contemplated, whereby this country will concentrate on the building of tankers at the expense of passenger and merchant vessels.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he proposes to reduce the estimated total of British shipbuilding put forward under the Marshall Plan Report; and whether he will make a statement.

Sir S. Cripps: Until the United States Congress has completed its consideration of the proposed measures to aid European recovery, discussion with the United States Administration of any of the proposals before the Congress would be inappropriate. Consequently no agreement has been reached or is at present contemplated in regard to the building of tankers at the expense of other types of ship. In fact, however, tankers represent an increasing proportion of the new tonnage to be laid down. Since the figures in the Paris Report were prepared last summer, some adjustment has had to be made in the estimate of United Kingdom shipbuilding output owing to the increasing shortage of materials.

Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there is a wide spread feeling that the 20 per cent. cut in the allocation of steel to the shipbuilding industry is an attempt to meet by different means the end which is indicated in the Question?

Sir S. Cripps: The two things are unconnected.

Colonel Hutchison: Would not the Chancellor agree that shipbuilding is just as large a foreign currency producer as any of the commercial activities of this country?

Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir; it not only produces, but saves foreign currency.

Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Chancellor aware that this effort of America, which is being made following his decision to cut the steel supply, will cause a very large amount of unemployment in the ship-building industry, which is one of the most important industries of this country?

Sir S. Cripps: The action of the Government has no connection whatever with the actions of the American Government.

POST OFFICE (OPENED LETTER)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. MARLOWE:

59 To ask the Chancellor of the Excheque under what authority an inland letter posted in Brighton to an address in Yorkshire, to which his attention has been drawn, was opened by the Customs authorities at Southampton and delayed six days in transit; whether, in the case of inland letters mis-sorted into overseas mad, his officials have instructions to examine the address before opening; and what action has been taken against the official concerned in view of the fact that this letter from a wife to her husband in the R.A.F. was clearly addressed to his station in this country.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Hobson): I have been asked to reply—

Mr. Marlowe: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I put this Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am now to receive an answer from the Assistant Postmaster-General. I have already dealt with this matter with the Post Office, from whom I have had a satisfactory reply, and they told me that the matter was one for the Customs Office, which I understand to be the responsibility of the Chancellor. Am I not entitled to have an answer from the Minister who is responsible?

Mr. Speaker: I would advise the hon. and learned Gentleman to hear the answer given, and then, if it is not satisfactory, to put down a Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. Hobson: I have been asked to reply, because the Post Office, and not

the Customs, is at fault. As already explained in my right hon. Friend's letter to the hon and learned Member, there was no authority for opening this inland letter. By an error in sorting, the Post Office included the letter referred to in a batch of overseas letters which were proper to be submitted to the Customs authorities, and a Post Office official working with a Customs officer opened the letter without observing, as was part of his duty, that it had been incorrectly placed with letters addressed to overseas destinations I much regret this unfortunate occurrence, and suitable action has been taken which I hope will prevent any similar mistreatment.

Mr. Marlowe: Will the hon. Gentleman tell me, first, whether the Post Office official who opened this letter could read, because the address was quite clear on the letter; secondly, why his right hon. Friend, in a letter to me, said that it was the responsibility of the Customs authorities; and thirdly, whether this is not the inevitable result of too much Government interference in private affairs?

PATENT OFFICE (DELAYS)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the long delays occurring at the Patent Office; and what steps are being taken to improve the situation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Belcher): I have been asked to reply. I am aware that, owing to circumstances arising out of the war, there are long delays at the Patent Office in the examination of applications for patents. It will necessarily take time to remedy the position, but considerable additions have been made to the staff and further appointments will be made during the year.

CHINA (ANTI-BRITISH DEMONSTRATION)

Mr. M. Lindsay: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the anti-British demonstrations in China.

The Minister of State (Mr. McNeil): Demonstrations took place against His


Majesty's Consulates-General at Canton on 26th January and at Shanghai on the following day. In the case of Shanghai, Measures taken by the Chinese authorities were successful in preventing demonstrators from entering the Consulate grounds. At Canton, however, I regret to say that the crowd, inflamed by tendentious reports concerning the eviction of Chinese squatters from the so-called walled city of Kowloon, broke through the weak guard provided and pillaged and burnt the Consulate-General and adjacent British commercial property. Four British subjects received slight injuries. The Chinese Government issued a statement on 16th January deeply regretting the incidents at Canton and instructing local authorities to accord adequate protection to British Consulates and nationals and to punish the rioters. His Majesty's Ambassador has been instructed to make written representations to the Chinese Government, taking note of the above statement, stressing the gravity of the attack on His Majesty's Consulate-General at Canton and adjacent property and claiming full compensation for all British property destroyed. His Majesty's Ambassador will also demand a public inquiry to establish the identity of the organisers and participants of the attack, the reasons for failure to prevent it, and the punishment of all persons found responsible.

Mr. John Paton: Is it not the case that evictions of the kind which were alleged to have been the cause of this trouble have been going on for perfectly sound reasons in Kowloon and Hong Kong for years past, and, therefore, is it not likely that the alleged cause of these troubles is simply a subterfuge to conceal the fact that certain people were anxious to foment this trouble?

Mr. McNeil: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Similar evictions have taken place for public health reasons, but, of course, I would not like to comment upon the possibility of other reasons being present here. I should prefer to wait for the inquiry which I hope the Chinese Government will implement.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Will the right hon. Gentleman take care to ask that the possible source of these inflammatory rumours is traced?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders of the Day — PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S AND DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S ANNUITIES BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.36 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I am sure that the House will not expect me to reiterate those matters which were dealt with on the Debate on the Resolutions just prior to the Christmas Recess. The matter was very fully considered, both on the Select Committee and by the House itself afterwards, and the Resolutions which formed the basis of this Bill were then passed by the House. The Bill sets out, by way of Preamble, the fact that His Majesty is making provision by payment into the Exchequer of £100,000 to assist in the granting of the further sums which subsequently, by the Bill itself, are assured to the young Royal couple.
Clause I provides for the payment to the Princess Elizabeth during her life of an annuity of £25,000, in addition to the sum which is already payable to her under the Civil List of 1937. Clause 2 makes provision for the annuity to be paid to the Duke of Edinburgh at the rate of £10,000, and makes the further provision that, in the event of the death of Princess Elizabeth in the lifetime of the Duke, and there being a child or children, there shall then be paid to the Duke, so long as any such child is Heir or Heiress Presumptive, a yearly sum of £15,000. Under Clause 3, it is laid down that the sums payable shall he charged on the Consolidated Fund, and they will, therefore, as was stated in the Select Committee's Report, attract Income Tax in so far as they are not exempted by special order of the Treasury.
Under Clause 4 an Amendment is made to the Civil List Act of 1937, which is rendered necessary by this Bill and was


recommended in the Committee's Report to the House, whereby, if her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth predeceases His Majesty, the provisions contained in the Civil List Act, 1937, shall apply only as respects any period during which one of His Majesty's daughters—that would be at the present moment His Majesty's other daughter—is Heiress Presumptive to the Throne, and not otherwise. That is the total content of the Bill which, as I say, carries out the whole of and nothing more than what the House has decided in its Resolutions, and I hope the House will find it convenient to pass the Bill quickly.

3.40 p.m.

Sir John Anderson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out that the provisions of this Bill do not in any respect go beyond what was contained in the Resolutions approved by the House before the Recess. There is, I understand, no provision in the Bill which was not fully covered by the terms of those Resolutions. As we on this side of the House supported the Resolutions, we shall, of course, support the Bill. Since the main division of opinion which developed in the course of the earlier Debate was concerned not with the principle of the Bill but with the question of the amount, we may perhaps hope that the Second Reading of the Bill will be passed after a very short discussion.

3.41 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: I want to make certain observations as briefly as I can with regard to the Bill, and I wish to reiterate the views which I put forward in the Debate just before Christmas. Those views I hold very strongly and I am aware they have a good deal of support both inside and outside the House. What is proposed in this Bill is wrong in certain important respects; it is, in those respects, symptomatic of an age which has now passed by; and, further, it is a disservice to the Royal Family and particularly to the Royal couple who are concerned in this Measure. I hold that it is very unwise that in these matters we should bury our heads in the sand and mistake the undoubted and very welcome enthusiasm at the Royal Wedding for approval of an outworn Court system. The two things are very different, although to my regret they were confused a good deal in some speeches on

both sides of the House just before Christmas. It would be very much wiser to bring our conceptions of Royalty into line with the more democratic thought which undoubtedly prevails today.
The views which I originally put forward, and which I am putting forward again today in a slightly modified form—modified only because there is now a Bill before the House, to the four corners of which I must, of course, conform—these views were extremely distorted by some Members opposite and certainly by the Press. I do not grumble at that—I expected they would be distorted a good deal—but it is my right and my duty to make clear what I was advocating and what I was not advocating. First, let me make it clear that I am in no sense at all a republican. Certain of my hon. Friends made it clear from these benches that they hold republican views. I do not hold such views, and I certainly was not in any sense attacking the Royal Family or the Royal couple. I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House will bear me out in that. On the contrary, I think I expressed quite clearly the view—and I reiterate it—that this Royal couple are kindly, sincere, well intentioned and of the highest integrity. I put that on record.
Secondly, I was not and am not suggesting that their Royal Highnesses should be expected to keep an expenses account. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris) in the previous Debate expressed himself in these words:
The suggestion of the hon. Member for Norwood … that their Royal Highnesses should be required to put in a weekly expenses sheet, like a reporter on a daily paper … seems to me something between the grotesque and the offensive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1947; Vol. 445, c. 1736.]
I never made any such suggestion, and, in my view, the distortion of my words is itself something between the grotesque and the offensive. The hon. Member who made that suggestion knows perfectly well that that was a gross distortion of what I said. He knows very well that there are plenty of members of the Royal Household who would carry out those functions, and that her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth would not be called upon to keep expenses accounts any more than I imagine she is called upon to write her shopping lists. The whole suggestion was entirely grotesque, and, I think,


something of a slight on the reporters of daily papers to whom the hon. Member referred. Equally grotesque was the suggestion by the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) that some Treasury official would decide what kind of wine should be put on the table when there was a luncheon to the French Ambassador. I think that was something of a slight on Australian burgundy—I do not know a great deal about wines, but the hon. Member for Oxford suggested that this Treasury official would insist that Australian burgundy should be served on such an occasion. The hon. Member said that he had "a horrible vision" of that happening. I think he certainly had a horrible vision; in fact I think it was a hallucination. In my view, the whole thing could and should be based on common sense, as are so many of our functions and so much of the machinery of our public and other life.
Thirdly, I was not suggesting any parsimonious and niggardly measure. I said nothing to that effect at all. On the contrary, I did not even use the word "austere." I spoke about "simple" living, but not about "austere" living. I did not ask for it, although some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House did suggest it. That was not and is not my formula. My plan, which I think is reasonable and sensible, is that there should be adequate allowances for the private and personal needs of their Royal Highnesses, and that all other expenditure should be put in an expenses account. I regret that such a provision has not been made in the Bill. That is why I am criticising it. It might be said that it is not possible to divide personal from Royal expenditure, but that is at once belied by the Report of the Select Committee, because it is stated in that Report that those who gave evidence before the Select Committee themselves suggested that £5,000 was an appropriate amount for the personal needs of Her Royal Highness. I did not originally propose that amount; it is clearly in the Report. That was the evidence submitted to the Select Committee; and, therefore, there can be no question of any impossibility of dividing these two forms of expenditure.
The right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) criticised my proposal, and one of his principal grounds of criticism was that there was

no upper limit to the possible expenditure. That was true. I was prepared to rely on the good sense of those who held the appropriate office at any time and, indeed, from any party As the proposal was then, there was no upper limit, but now, because I am making the proposal within the four corners of the Bill as it faces the House, there is perforce an upper limit; so that objection, which the right hon. Gentleman had, has now been removed and I hope he will find it possible in due course to support my Amendment. It is true that I advocated certification of these Royal accounts and I still hold very thoroughly and very strongly to the view that, when large sums of public money are involved, it is only correct and reasonable that that expenditure, item by item, should he agreed and certified in this way.
I go beyond that. In my view, this certification of expenditure on Royal duties and obligations should be a very important means of doing what all, certainly on this side of the House, desire—effecting gradually some reduction in the extent and size of the Court and of the establishment. Many views were expressed, particularly on this side of the House, that it was desirable to get some reduction in the size of the Court and the establishment, but no other practical view beyond mine, I think, was put forward as to how to do it. This plan of mine makes it very possible for household officials, helped by and in collaboration with Her Royal Highness, I would hope, to effect with this method of control that reduction in the size and extent of the Court and establishment which and certainly many on this side of the House, believe should be effected. Further, in my view this reduction and contraction in the size of the Court and the number of retainers is definitely in keeping with the views sincerely held by the great bulk of the people of this country.
I am therefore this afternoon quite definitely asking the Government if, when they reply, they will give me an assurance that the Amendment which it is my intention to propose on the Committee stage will in due course be accepted by them, either in the form in which I put it forward or in some modified form. The burden of my Amendment I believe to be right and, therefore, the position which I find myself obliged to take up is that if the Government are able to give me an assurance to


this effect this afternoon, then I would certainly be prepared to support the Second Reading of today's Bill. Otherwise, I will not. It is no good for the Government to say that at some later date they hope to amend and revise the whole basis of the Civil List. In my strong view, and I believe in the view of my hon. Friends on this side of the House, this is the time to make a move in this matter and this is the time and the fashion in which to make a start.
I do stress that what I am putting forward will not in any way impair or cramp the efficiency or, if you like, the splendour and the pageantry of our Royalty. Splendour and pageantry are required and undoubtedly will continue, but this proposal of mine will put them in a very much fairer light, especially from the point of view of their Royal Highnesses; it will put the whole aspect of this matter on a much more democratic basis, and it will start a reform which we believe in, which should be started now and which, in my view, would have the backing of the great mass of the people of the country. I want to remind my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench of the Amendment which they put down in 1937 to the Civil List Bill. It makes rather sad and surprising reading, since they have now entirely and obviously reversed the attitude which in great detail is set forth in their Amendment for 1937. They seem to have forgotten their earlier and better conceptions of this matter. I am reminding them, I hope, of their better selves. For that reason, I very earnestly ask the Government to make quite clear when they reply whether they are prepared to accept either the exact words or at least the spirit of the Amendment which in due course I shall hope to propose, and if they will give careful consideration to this matter and will believe that I put forward the plea in every sincerity myself, feeling very strongly that it is something in keeping with the sense and viewpoint of the present age.

3.56 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: I rise with some reluctance to take part in this Debate, because I regret that we are having to have a Debate at all on this matter. As I conceive it, there are only two grounds upon which the Government proposals in this Bill can be opposed.

The first is that we do not desire the institution of the Monarchy to continue. The second ground is that we regard the provisions which the House proposes shall be made for the Duke of Edinburgh and his wife as excessive provisions. Those are, in my judgment, the only two grounds upon which the Government's proposals could be attacked.
I submit that the first ground is absolutely invalid. Not for 100 years has the institution of the Monarchy in Britain been seriously questioned, and I venture to think that anyone who had fought the last election on a programme to destroy the Monarchy would not be here today to take exception to the proposals of the Government. I regard that ground, therefore, as absolutely inadmissible. If we will the end we must provide the means. If we will the institution of the Monarchy to continue—and the more I see of republics the more firmly I am convinced it should continue—we cannot object to making the necessary provisions for the maintenance of the institution.
That leaves only the other ground—that the suggested proposals made are exorbitant or too great, and ought in some way or other to be reduced or restricted. I know the hon. Member who has just addressed the House, and I know that what he said was said in all sincerity, but I take a different view. I take the view that it is impossible for this House, consisting of 640 Members, to argue in detail the expenditure in a case of this kind. If that be granted, then we are left to adopt the only course compatible with commonsense—to take the advice of the leaders on all sides of the House whose job it was to look into this problem, and to come to us with reasonable proposals. I am not always in the habit of accepting with credulity what is recommended to the House by the leaders on either side, but this Is a question on which we ought to take the advice of the Committee which has gone into the matter.
I hope there will be no cowardly running away as there was in the Debate earlier. I am not enamoured of party Whips, but I must say the decision last time to put on the Whips, and then the decision to withdraw the Whips displayed this House in a very unfavourable light indeed, in a matter in which the House should not be made to appear in an un-


favourable light. I support the Bill; I hope the Government will stand by it, that it will, as far as possible, be unanimously endorsed by the House, and that as little pain will be given as is consistent with the circumstances to those who are the subject of the Bill this afternoon.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I differ entirely from the views expressed by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown). There is no more remarkable phenomenon that that of an extreme revolutionary or ex-revolutionary turned into one who makes conventional and respectable speeches. That description applies not only to the hon. Member for Rugby but also to right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench who are now advocating in this Bill exactly the opposite opinion to that which they expressed in 1937. I listened with very great respect to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the previous Debate, and I have had time to reflect upon the arguments he brought forward on that occasion. He was, I believe, in a somewhat romantic and sentimental mood. I should have thought that he would have got over that during the Christmas Recess. There were no new arguments brought forward to support the flimsy case which resulted in the Select Committee's recommendations being carried by this House—and carried not with th2 votes of the Labour Party, but by the Tory Members of this House. I say that the Chancellor and those who support him would not dare go to a Labour Party conference, or to the rank and file of their constituents, and talk in the manner in which they talked in supporting these proposals in this House.
The Chancellor talked to us today about the full information which was given to the Select Committee. Those of us who are private Members of this House have had no access to the information which was placed before the Committee. It is the most condensed and abbreviated document, which gives us none of the information relevant to enable us to make up our minds upon this issue. There were no indiscretions committed by the Members of the Select Committee. When I asked some of them as to the facts and figures they were as reticent as oysters. We still do not know, those of us who are ordinary Members of this House, the relevant facts

and figures which we must know before we can decide whether we can vote for this Bill or not. I put a Question to the Minister of Labour recently, and asked him if he could tell us how many insurable workers are employed at the Palace of Westminster, and his reply was:
This information is not separately recorded, and I do not propose to make special inquiries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT: 4th December, 1947; Vol. 33, c. 577.]
Then he looked reproachfully at me over his spectacles as though I had asked an indecent question.
We have heard a lot about iron curtains during the last few years. I fail to see why there should be an iron curtain surrounding Buckingham Palace, or why we should not have the fullest possible information on the items of expenditure we are called upon to consider before we can make up our minds on this question. We have to have recourse to the papers. I see a report in one very well circulated paper to the effect that there is a Comptroller of the Household, that there is a private secretary, that there are butlers and footmen and chefs, and that there is a very large retinue to be supported from public funds. I say—and I have taken the trouble to get the opinion of my constituents on this matter—that this is not a Bill which should be brought forward in a time of austerity; that the £15,000 which is allowed to Her Royal Highness is sufficient for the time being, as long as we have an economic crisis, and that when we come out of the economic crisis it will be time to consider any increases. After all, plain and simple people assess these things in a very simple way. The old age pensioners in my constituency have said that there is no reason why this should have priority over their claims. I have discussed this matter in Scotland and in South Wales with men who are living on a low standard of income and suffering from silicosis and tuberculosis.
I want to know why it is impossible in these days for dignity to be upheld in a decent, respectable way on £15,000 a year. I maintain that we are not entitled to give an extra brass farthing on this occasion, and that it is possible for a party representative of democracy in this country to take up this view on this particular occasion. Of course, we do not wish any ill will to the Princess. We wish her joy. We wish to both the


Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh the utmost happiness. But is it necessary to have a huge income in order to maintain dignity? Is it not possible to live quite happily on £15,000 a year? We have been reading recently, those of us who read the Sunday papers, of a previous monarch; and I must confess that I have read the articles with a great deal of sympathy and sadness—about the routine, and the education of the Duke of Windsor. If the Duke of Windsor had been compelled to live on £15,000 a year I believe he would have been happier. I do suggest that the education of the Princess would be richer, for she would understand the lives of the common people and the women of this country better, if she were to take her place along with the women queueing up—for their potato rations, for instance. There is nothing undignified in that. I maintain that if the Monarchy in this country is to exist, it should know the minds and the lives of the people of this country.
Those of us who see it in this way are more in touch with what ordinary people are thinking—the miners, fishermen and farmers—than the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson). After all, it is his Motion we are being called upon to support by our votes to-day. It is not a Motion which came from the Labour Party's Members. It is the Motion of the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities that he sponsored in the Committee. I am not going to take my leadership on any of these social questions from the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities, who came to this House recently and suggested that we should delay our consideration of the claims of the old age pensioners. As for his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, he is already occupying a position under the Crown. According to the "Scotsman" newspaper, he is in receipt of £15 2s. 2d. per week. That is a quite substantial sum from the point of view of the average wage earner—the miner, the farmworker, and the fishermen.
I feel that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have made a mistake in attaching the Duke of Edinburgh to one of the military Ministries. The Duke of Wellington, a former Prime Minister, and an authority on military affairs—[Laughter.] I am rather sur-

prised that Conservative Members should laugh about the Duke of Wellington. He expressed the point of view that the military profession was a "damnable profession"—and he ought to have known. I wish the Duke of Edinburgh had been attached to the Ministry of Fuel and Power. [Laughter.] Why laugh? Field Marshal Montgomery has described coal-mining as an honourable profession, and I know nothing that would increase the popularity of the Duke of Edinburgh more than if he went to Scotland or to South Wales and attempted to dig up coal.
These are the views of men in the mines and on the land and in the workshops, and they should be expressed in this House by voice and by Division. I hope we shall divide against this Bill. I ask even at this late moment that the Government should consider again that we have our traditions, and that they are the democratic traditions of Keir Hardie, who stood in this House and protested against the extravagant sums granted to Royalty in his time. I hope we shall go into the Division Lobby and force the Government to withdraw this Bill even at this late moment, in order to express the views of the common people of this country.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. McGovern: I, in common with other hon. Members, expressed my view on the last occasion on which these proposals were debated. I am certainly not so optimistic as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr Emrys Hughes), who says he hopes that even now the Government will withdraw these proposals from the House. I go further, and say that in this House there would be a majority in favour of a Monarchy were it put to the test and had the House the right to decide the issue. However, I would not be prepared to dogmatise about whether there is that clear majority in the country, as is so often stated by hon. Members.
These proposals were submitted to a Select Committee of the House who decided in their wisdom, or otherwise, that the proposals should be put before the House and should have the backing of the majority of hon. Members. They are now before the House, but I am not prepared to support the proposals now being debated. I accept as largely true, having seen the developments throughout the


world in the new republics, that when we compare our system with that in those republics, we are driven to the conclusion that we are a very lucky democracy indeed to be living under our present conditions. At least, there is no threat that we will lose our heads if we oppose. Nevertheless, I maintain that, as the Government have a mandate to modify the effects of capitalism and the privileges of a privileged section of the community, this might have been one of the privileged sections to be considered. Even if we con-tinned provisions made previously for the Royal Family, we might very well have begun a modification with these two young people and made an entirely different approach to the provisions to be made for them in the future.
It is a bad thing to have too much time on one's hands and too much money in one's pocket. Without going into the details of the alleged revelations made by the Duke of Windsor, in my view, had he had much less money to spend, he might have been a more satisfied citizen; and the community might have derived greater satisfaction from his rule than it did, had steps been taken to modify the effects of the monarchical system and the provisions then made. Even had the ordinary provision been made for the Princess, we could have begun a completely new departure in the case of this young couple. Supposing foreign statesmen come here and there are gatherings to be presided over, what would be wrong with Government Departments—whether the Foreign Office or some other Ministry—having a reasonable function and the Princess or the Monarch being invited to come and preside and to receive any presents there, should that bring advantage to the community, the expenses of the function being borne by the State? It would then be an expense of the, Department concerned, and we would have the right to criticise, without introducing the affairs of the Monarch at all.
The young couple themselves should also be able to lead a private life to a greater extent than at the present moment. I have great sympathy with monarchs, princes and princesses when they go around the country. They have no private life at all. Everywhere they go there are the Press and the photographers. There was one occasion when photo-

graphs of a very illuminating nature were taken at a function at which the Duke of Windsor was present, but they were not allowed to be published in this country; we had to get them from the American and the Continental Press. I myself possess a photograph of the Duke of Windsor wearing British naval uniform, coming off a British cruiser and giving the Fascist salute.

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. Are we concerned with what the Duke of Windsor did in the matter of the Fascist salute? I see no reference to the Duke of Windsor in this Bill.

Mr. Speaker: I must confess that I do not see that it has anything to do with the Bill before the House.

Mr. McGovern: I accept your view on that matter, Mr. Speaker. I have no anxiety to provoke anything in the nature of antagonism, more than any expression of mine in relation to the Monarchy is bound to provoke antagonism in the unreasonable minds of those who do not agree with my views. Those hon. Members who are monarchists are entitled to defend the Monarchy; they are entitled to vote for it; and they are entitled to back any provision that is made for it, while I must take the opposite point of view.
In this Measure we could have made the departure I have suggested, and we could also have given these young people the right to pursue a modified form of living. After all, we cannot expect miners, old age pensioners, widows and men blinded or disabled in the war to be enthusiastic over the provisions of this Bill when they see outrageous sums of money being voted away by this House, while at the same time they themselves are living in a state of penury. I can understand the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir J. Anderson) approving of this Bill, although he did not show the same enthusiasm over provisions for old age pensioners and people receiving family allowances. Indeed, he condemned the haste of the Government in introducing those Measures. When a right hon. Gentleman flies to Spain to attend the wedding of the Duke of Alba to a millionaire's daughter, one can understand that his sympathies do not lie in exactly the same field as my own.
I take strong exception to one provision in this Bill, namely, the provision to put


the Duke of Edinburgh on to the Civil List. I am not prepared to attack him as an individual, or to say that he did not give valiant service during the war. I have no complaint to make and no criticism to offer in respect of those services, for which due homage could be paid in other ways. But simply because an individual is married to a member of the Royal Family is no reason why we should give him an income and a situation, neither of which he would have received in the ordinary course and to which strong exception can be taken. Therefore, I take strong exception to the provision that is being made for the Duke of Edinburgh, with at least four-fifths of the income being outside the ordinary provisions of Income Tax because it is treated as expenses. We have heard the Conservatives say, "Jobs for the boys," but this is surely one of the worst cases of a job for the boy that we have had in this Parliament.
I am prepared to accept many things which the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) says, but I would point out to him and to other hon. Members that on one occasion I introduced a Private Members' Bill to make the taking of an oath of allegiance to the Monarchy optional. Those who fought me on that occasion produced tens of thousands of leaflets giving extracts from my speeches in the House, and asking the electors to vote against me. The electors did not vote against me, but I would not say that that proved they were anti-monarchists.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Will not the hon. Member agree with me when I say that there is probably not a Member of the 640 in this House who included in his election address the issue of the destruction of the Monarchy. If that is so, am I not entitled to observe that, having willed the end that there shall be a Monarchy, we are logically bound to provide the means?

Mr. McGovern: I accept that in a large measure. It is not one of the things which we can determine completely here. I have argued in many of my speeches that the present capitalist system should be modified and got rid of, not by ruthless methods, but according to British traditions; a should be modified according to enlightened opinion. I regard the Monarchy as the highest symbol of the

capitalist system. It should therefore be modified in the same way, and these modifications should have begun with this young people. We ought to have made a completely new departure here, apart from what has happened in the past.
I do not blame the Government, as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire has blamed them. I have come to the conclusion that oppositions are very violent and unreasoned in their attitude towards governments. Many of the things they put up are things they would never dream of carrying out if they were in office. It is right for a government, if there is an overwhelming body of opinion in favour of Monarchy, in the democratic manner, to change the attitude which they adopted to unseat the other fellows when they were not in office. Therefore, to that extent I am not aghast at what the Government are suggesting, nor am I hot under the collar whether or not there should be a Division.
I believe that once a Member has made his point of view known to the House, it is not necessary to go on voting again and again against a Measure. When I was a Member of a party of three, we used to ask the Government to accept a certain thing as our opinion, although we did not necessarily divide on the issue. I am in the same position tonight. I do not accept what is being proposed. I think it is unreasonable, in view of the changes which have taken place. I simply make known again my point of view, and state my objections to the provision which is being made. In the case of the Duke of Edinburgh, it is completely out of line with the popular opinion of the large masses of the people of this country.

4.25 p.m.

Sir Ralph Glyn: In the discussion today and in the Debate which took place before Christmas, it is curious to note that no mention has been made of the position the Royal Family occupy in regard to the British Commonwealth of Nations. I consider it is a matter of prime importance that some voice should be raised in this Debate concerning this aspect. If hon. Members will look at the Statute of Westminster, which is perhaps one of the most important State documents ever issued, they will find it is laid down that the Crown remains the one and only link between the free nations of the British Commonwealth.

Mr. Chamberlain: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to do me an injustice, but that was one of the principal points in the speech I made before Christmas. I believe firmly in the Monarchy, and I think I am right in saying that on that occasion I said it was the "linch-pin" of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Sir R. Glyn: I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member said that, and I apologise to him if he thinks that I was in any way casting a reflection on his views. I regret that I overlooked the reference in his speech. On the other hand, I can hardly believe that that is in line with what he is now doing.
It seems to me that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is dealing with something which is really common to the whole of the British Commonwealth. When this matter originally came forward, the Government should have consulted with the British Dominions to find out what were their views. I feel very strongly that just as in the days of Queen Victoria and her Consort, when Balmoral was established as the home to which the Royal Family could go to get to know Scottish habits and customs, so now there should be suitable houses established in every Dominion where the Royal Family can go and mix with their subjects. It should not be a great occasion of surprise and astonishment when the Royal Family go abroad, as it was when they went to South Africa. It ought to be common form and practice.
I believe that the duties of the Royal Family overseas will, as time goes on, become greater and greater. I wonder what will be the opinion of some of His Majesty's subjects in the Colonies, as well as in the Dominions, when they read passages from the Debates which have taken place in this House on this subject. I know there is no Member who would use this occasion to do anything to reduce the vital position of the Crown as the only link in the British Commonwealth. I think it ought to be said emphatically that though we bear the whole of this financial burden in this country, we ought not to assume it is not equally the wish of the Dominions to assume their share. The Royal Family is not the prerogative of the United Kingdom, but is the proud possession of every member of the King's Dominions. In these circumstances, I hope that it will be possible in future for

Princess Elizabeth and her Consort to visit every part of the British Commonwealth and to get to know all their subjects overseas. I hope there will be no Division tonight, irrespective of the views which have been put forward in absolute sincerity by the hon. Member opposite. As a Select Committee of this House has made a report to Parliament, and in view of the tremendous implications involved from the Commonwealth point of view, I hope that we shall be able to come to a conclusion without expressing dissent.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: I hesitate, as a humble back bencher, to participate in this Debate, but I feel it my duty to express the apprehension and difficulty in which I find myself today. Before the Recess we had some discussion on this subject, and the point I want to make now is that as Members of Parliament representing our constituents we are in great difficulty because the full facts of the case are not before us. We are asked to do, as we were on a previous occasion, to consider figures which may or may not represent the price of the job, if I may, without disrespect, use that phrase. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) said that none of us had indicated in our election addresses that we wished to sweep away the Monarchy, which is quite right. He also said that not having done that, we should will the means to make possible the continuance of the Monarchy. But would not he and all other Members agree that it is most difficult to come to a reasonable and considered view of what the proper sum is in the absence of evidence?
We certainly remitted this question to a small Committee of responsible and representative Members of the House, but what was the position that emerged? We were confronted with a minority Report. The argument was advanced that since the senior Members of the Committee were associated with the majority Report the House should thus pay more attention to that Report. That, I think, was a spurious argument. I did not think that because men were new to this House, and were rather young, that their views were any the less valuable on a matter of this kind. I should have thought it was a reasonable request—and I should think that the Royal House itself would not consider it unreasonable—for some information to be given to the representatives of the people


who are responsible for dealing with the taxpayers' money. They should have the fullest explanation. If nothing can be done on this occasion I think a useful purpose will have been served by raising the point today, as it is likely to be raised on subsequent occasions.
We are not here concerned as to whether the Monarchy is a good or bad thing; we are agreed, presumably, that the Monarchy is to continue, and we are asked by the Government, in this Bill, to give our assent to the provision of a certain sum of money. As I did not vote on the last occasion, in the absence of complete information and the presence of conflicting views from the minority section of the Select Committee—views for which, nevertheless, I have every respect—I am not in a proper position to give my considered point of view now. The sum of £50,000 might or might not be appropriate, but it appears to be a large sum to the ordinary man and woman in the street. The hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) has just reminded us that this is not a matter which concerns only the people of these islands; it is a matter of interest to the whole Commonwealth of Nations. It may be that the sum proposed is not unreasonable, but I believe that many of the common people think it disproportionate. We ought to have access to the fullest information. I cannot for the life of me see why it is denied to Members of Parliament, and I hope the Government will do something about this in the future.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: We have heard today an amazing exposition of the classical expression of the American politician who said, "Ladies and gentlemen, these are my principles. If you do not like them, I am agreeable to changing them." I hope we shall never give support to such irresponsibility. I want to oppose this Bill but, at the same time, I do not want to say anything offensive. I want to speak with the utmost good will in the world in accordance with my New Year resolution. I would say only this: That if this extra money was being provided because those who were to receive it were giving up the job, I would be prepared to grant it. It is inherent in any policy of real Socialism that there should be an end of the Monarchy—

Mr. W. J. Brown: I would observe that there was such a thing as a Monarchy before the development of the capitalist system, and that it will probably survive long after its passing.

Mr. Gallacher: It will be very revealing if the hon. Member can show me that any real Socialist system is consistent with the continuan of the Monarchy.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member has it in Russia.

Mr. Gallacher: As I have just said,  this money were to be compensation for giving up the job I would agree that it should be granted, but as it is, I shall join with those who oppose its grant.

4.37 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I think the House will agree that the Debate we had on the Committee stage of the Money Resolution adequately covered all the points that have again been raised by Members today. I think the House will also generally agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer adequately answered the points that were made in that Debate. It would, therefore, be unfair to the House if I now attempted to cover this ground again. It is not often I agree with the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), but I think he put the case for this Bill in a nutshell. It is possible to be a republican and against all monarchies, but no one who has spoken in our Debates has for one moment taken that line. Bouquets have been flung at the Royal Family, even by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher)—

Mr. Gallacher: No.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: It has been taken for granted that the Royal Family do a very difficult and tiresome job well, to the satisfaction of the peoples of this country and the Commonwealth and Empire beyond the seas. The question before us is not whether we should or should not have a Monarchy—it would be out of Order to discuss that on this Bill—but whether the amounts which are proposed in the Bill are or are not reasonable in all the circumstances. The Select Committee which considered this matter, and which heard and sifted the evidence, came definitely to the conclusion that the amounts in the Bill were reasonable, and that the House should be asked to agree


to them. Those who have read the Report will notice that the evidence placed before the Committee did, in fact, put forward estimates which suggested that the sum should be greater than the amount now proposed. The suggestion was, in the view of those who gave evidence, that a further £10,000 would bring the total to nearer the amount required. Therefore, I think that the Government have been reasonable, and that the House should be well satisfied to accept the figures placed before it in this Bill.
The point has been made that the Government, or many of the Members who now help to form the Government, took an entirely different line in 1937 That, of course, is not the case. In 1937, the House was not dealing with anything analagous to this. Then, at the beginning of a new reign, it was overhauling and considering the whole Civil List. Here, we are dealing with the much narrower issue of how much is a reasonable sum to grant to Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh on their marriage, in order that they may keep up the dignity and standards of the duties which they have to perform? This is, therefore, not the occasion for the general overhaul which some Members have suggested.

Mr. Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman has touched on what is a sore point for many of us. He said that this was not the time for facing up to a general overhaul. Does he indicate that there will be a reconsideration of the functions of the Monarchy in a Socialist democracy at an early date?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: That is a question which I cannot possibly answer. For one thing, it would be out of Order for me to do so; for another, such a review cannot take place until there is a demise of the Crown. Every time there has been such an occasion—up to now, at any rate, and I take it that it will continue—it is usual for Parliament to look anew at the Civil List. I was saying, in reply

to criticisms of a complete change of front by right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen now sitting on this Bench, that we are not dealing with the Civil List in its entirety, but with one thing only. Therefore, without saying any more, I would ask the House—I hope without a Division—to give a Second Reading to this Measure.

Mr. Chamberlain: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, may I point out that I asked a specific question and for a specific assurance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not see fit before Christmas to answer the question which I then put to him. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman is not now going to brush aside entirely the question which I have asked him, which was specifically to say whether the Government would be prepared to accept the sense of the Amendment which I have put down for the Committee stage.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The point raised by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Chamberlain) is a Committee point. I have noticed that he has an Amendment on the Order Paper which, no doubt, will be dealt with when we reach the Committee stage. It will be for whoever then stands at this Box to indicate what is the attitude of the Government to it. If I am asked to make a forecast, I would say that I would not, if I were in the hon. Gentleman's place, assume that the Government are likely to accept even the sense of the Amendment which he has put down.

Mr. Chamberlain: I wanted that point made clear, so that I might make my position clear. If the right hon. Gentleman had been able to give that assurance, I should be able to support the Second Reading of this Bill, but if he is unable to do so, I cannot support it.

Question put, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 294; Noes, 17.

Division No. 53.]
AYES.
4.46 p.m.


Acland, Sir R
Assheton, Rt. Hon. R
Battley, J. R.


Adams Richard (Balham)
Attewell, H. C.
Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.


Agnew, Cmdr. P G
Austin, H. Lewis
Bechervaise, A. E


Alexander, Rt. Hon A. V.
Awbery, S. S.
Bellenger Rt. Hon. F. J


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Ayrton Gould Mrs. B.
Bennett, Sir P.


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Bacon, Miss A.
Benson G


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Baldwin, A. E.
Berry, H.


Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Scot. Univ.)
Barstow. P G.
Beswick, F.




B[...]van, Rt Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Hardy, E. A.
Nicholson, G.


Binns, J
Harris, H Wilson
Nield, B. (Chester)


Boles Lt.-Col. D C. (Wells)
Harrison, J.
Noble, Comdr A. H. P.


Bossom A C
Haughton, S. G.
No[...]l-Baker, Capt. F E. (Brentford)


Bower, N.
Haworth, J.
Nutting, Anthony


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Head, Brig. A. H.
Odey, G. W


Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
O'Neill, Rt Hon. Sir H


Bramall, E A.
Henderson, Rt. Hn A. (Kingswinford)
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Brooks, T J. (Rothwell)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Brown, T J. (Ince)
Hicks, G
Parker, J


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
H[...]llis, M C.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Bruce, Maj D. W. T
Hope, Lord J.
Peake, Rt Hon. O


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
House, G.
Perrins, W.


Bullock, Capt. M
Howard, Hon A.
Pickthorn, K.


Burke, W A
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)


Butcher, H. W.
Hurd, A
Poole, O. B. S (Oswestry)


Butler, H W (Hackney, S)
Hutchinson, H. L (Rusholme)
Popplewell, E.


Butler, Rt Hon. R. A. (S'f[...]r'n Wld'n)
Hutchison, Lt -Cm Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Byers, Frank
Hutchison, Col J R (Glasgow, C.)
Prescott, Stanley


Carson, E
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C)
Proctor, W T


Cattle, Mrs. B. A.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Raikes H V


Challen, C
Irvine, A J (Liverpool)
Ramsay, Maj S


Champion A. J.
Isaacs, Rt Hon. G A.
Randall, H. E.


Channon, H.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Rayner, Brig. R


Chetwynd, G. R.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Reed, Sir S (Aylesbury)


Clarke Col R. S.
Jones, Rt Hon A C (Shipley)
Rees-Williams, D. R


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col G.
Jones, D T (Hartlepools)
Reeves, J.


Cluse, W S.
Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)
Reid, T (Swindon)


Cole, T L.
Jones, P Asterley (Hitchin)
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)


Comyns, Dr L.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon L W.
Robertson, J J (Berwick)


Conant, Mai R J. E
Keeling, E H.
Robinson, Roland


Cooper-Key, E M
Kerr, Sir J Graham
Ross, Sir R D. (Londonderry)


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Kingsmill, Lt.-Col W. H.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Crawley, A
Kin'ey, J.
S[...]nderson, Sir F


Cripps, Rt Hon. Sir S.
Lambert, Hon G
Scott, Lord W.


Crockshank, Capt Rt Hon H F C
Lancaster, Col C. G.
Scott-Elli[...]t, W.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Langford-Holt, J.
Segal, Dr S


Crowder, Capt John E.
Law. Rt Hon R K.
Sharp, Granville


Daines, P
Lawson, Rt Hon J. J.
Shephard, S (Newark)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Lee, F (Hulme)
Shepherd, W S (Bucklew)


Darling, Sir W [...].
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Simmons, C. J.


Davies, Clement (Montgomery)
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Skeffington-Lodge, T C


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Leonard, W.
Skinnard, F. W


Diamond, J
Levy, B W
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Dobbie, W
Lewis, J (Bolton)
Smith, H N (Nottingham, S.)


Dodds, N. N.
Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)
Smith, S. H (Hull, S.W.)


Dodds-Parker, A. D
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Smithers, Sir W.


Drayson, G B
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Snadden, W. M.


Drewe, C
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Snow, J. W.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Low, A. R. W.
Soskice, Maj Sir [...]


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Lyne, A. W
Spence, H. R


Dumpleton, C W
McAdam, W.
Stanley, Rt. Hon O.


Duncan, Rt. Hon Sir A. (City of Lond.)
McCallum, Maj. D.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Duthie, W S
McCorquodale, Rt Hon M. S.
Stokes, R. R.


Dye, S.
McEntee, V La T.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Eccles, D. M.
McKay, J (Wallsend)
Stross, Dr B


Ede, Rt Hon. J. C
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Studholme, H G


Edelman, M.
McKinlay, A S.
Summerskill, Dr Edith


Eden, Rl Hon. A.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Sutcliffe, H.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwell[...]y)
Mainwaring, W. H.
Symonds, A. L.


Elliot, Rt Hon Walter
Mar[...]owe, A. A. H.
Taylor, C S (Eas[...]ou[...]e)


Evans, S N. (Wednesbury)
Marsden, Capt. A.
Taylor, R J (Morpeth)


Ewart, R
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Taylor, Dr S (Barnet)


Farthing, W J.
Marshall, S. H (Sult[...]n)
Teeling, William


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Martin, J. H.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Fraser, H. C P. (St[...]ne)
Mathers, Rt Hon. G.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Mayhew, C. P.
Thornton-Kemsley, C N.


Gage, C.
Mell[...]r, Sir J
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Galbraith, Cmdr T. D.
Millington, Wing-Comdr E. R.
Thurtle, Ernest


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Mitchison, G. R.
Tiffany, S.


Gibbins, J
Molson, A. H. E.
Titterington, M. F.


Gibson, C W
Morley, R.
T[...]lley, L.


Glyn, Sir R.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)
Tomlinson, Rt Hon. G.


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
Touche, G C.


Granville, E (Eye)
Morrison, Rt Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Turton, R H.


Greenwood A. W. J. (Heywood)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Ciren[...]ester)
Ung[...]ed-Thomas, L


Grenfell, D. R.
M[...]rt, D. L.
Usborne, Henry


Grey, C F.
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Vane, W. M F


Grimston, R V.
Moyle, A
Vernon, Maj. W F


Guy, W H.
Mullan, Lt C. H.
Wadsworth, G


Haire, John E. (Wy[...]mbe)
Neal, H (Claycross)
Walker, G H.


Hall, Rt. Hon Glenvil
Neill, W F (Belfast, N)
Wallace, G D. (Chislehurst)


Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Wallace, H. W (Walthamst[...]w, E.)


Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Warbey, W. N.







Wall, Sir G. S. Harvie
Wigg, George
Wise, Major F. J.


Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)
Wilkins, W. A.
Woods, G. S.


Wells, P. L. (Faversham)
Willey, O G. (Cleveland)
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Wheatley, Col M. J. (Dorset, E.)
Williams, C. (Torquay)
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


While, Sir D. (Fareham)
Williams, W. R. (Heston)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


White, J. B. (Canterbury)
Wills, Mrs. E. A.
Mr. Pearson and


Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Mr. Collindridge




NOES.


Ayles, W. H.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Pritt, D. N.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Holman, P.
Ranger, J.


Chater, D
Keenan, W
Sylvester, G. O.


Daggar, G.
McGovern, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Gallacher, W.
Moody, A S.
Mr. Chamberlain and


Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Naylor, T E.
Mr. Emrys Hughes.


Grierson, E.
Piratin, P.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole Richard Adams.]

OVERSEAS RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: Before I move the new Clause standing in my name and that of my hon. Friends, I want to ask whether it is your intention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to call the Amendment to Clause 3—in page 2, line 33, after "Kingdom", insert:
other than in colonial territories.
Though that Amendment has a somewhat different object it covers the same ground, and I should prefer to cover the ground more fully on the Amendment rather than on the new Clause.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): It is my intention to call the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman—page 2, line 33—and also the two Amendments which follow, namely, page 2, line 36, at beginning, insert:
Notwithstanding anything in paragraph (a).
and—page 2, line 41, leave out from beginning to end of line 45.

Mr. Stanley: I am very much obliged to you.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Transfer of projects to the Colonial Development Corporation.)
His Majesty in Council may by order direct that any project formulated or which is being carried out by the Overseas Food Corporation shall be carried out by the Colonial Development Corporation instead of by the Overseas Food Corporation and such Order may provide for the transfer and vesting of any property and for any matters incidental to or consequential upon the transfer of any project as aforesaid.—[Mr. Stanley.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Stanley: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause deals with the only point at issue between us on this Bill, and that is the part to be played in Colonial territory by the Corporations sponsored by the Ministry of Food. We shall have an opportunity on the next Amendment of discussing the whole matter at far greater length, and I trust that the House will see fit to reverse the decision come to in Standing Committee. In case that should not be the result—and

one has always to remember that against the power of argument addressed from this side of the House there is the greater though unseen power of the Whips applied from that side—this new Clause will be found of service. I myself cannot see any possible grounds upon which the Government can object to, or reject, this new Clause.
It is not mandatory in any way. It does not compel this Government, or any Government, to do anything. It says that if, at any subsequent time, the Government, in their discretion and on their responsibility, come to the decision that work which hitherto had been done by the Food Corporation in Colonial territories could be done better by the Overseas Corporation responsible to the Colonial Office, the transfer of that work from one Corporation to the other could be carried out by the simple process of an Order in Council instead of by a new Act of Parliament, which the Bill, as drafted, would now require.
I am sure that the Minister of Food will agree that this proposal does not impose upon the Government obligations about which they might differ from me. It gives to the Government a useful piece of machinery which, in future years, they may be only too anxious to use. I submit the proposed new Clause with the utmost confidence that the Government, who have not been very generous in meeting Amendments to the Bill, will in this case be unable to find any grounds for refusing to support it, since it is designed solely to assist them.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: I support the proposed new Clause with the same confidence as that with which my right hon. Friend has just moved this Motion. It must be clear to everybody who was present during the Committee stage of the Bill that the project we have in mind, and which has the good will of everyone, is still only in its very early stages. It is a large-scale experiment, with great ramifications. Nobody can, therefore, in the very nature of the position, be dogmatic about the final outcome of the project. A Clause giving a greater degree of flexibility to the administration, enabling them to prepare at the present moment for an eventuality that may come very suddenly, as things do occur suddenly in Colonial development, is obviously wanted.
The proposed new Clause lays down no hard-and-fast rule, clamping down the Government to something which they must follow. It gives the Government an opportunity now to take action should difficulties arise. Everybody who has seen the variations which take place and the difficulties which spring up almost overnight in Colonial development, must foresee that this is a possibility, if not a probability. The proposed new Clause would add to the flexibility of a Measure which must be purely experimental, and that must be a sound thing to do. I hope we shall hear that the new Clause is to be accepted.

The tinder-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Rees-Williams): I regret to say that we cannot accept the proposed new Clause. After the House has considered the matter fully in view of what I have to say, I think hon. Members will agree with me that it would be most improper for us to do so, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman has said. In this case, both the Whips and the argument are on this side, and, for once, right and the big battalions are together.
The first objection to the transfer of any project is that the Overseas Food Corporation can operate in any territory. It may operate in Colonial territories, at the invitation of the Secretary of State, and it can operate also in foreign or in Dominion territories. It would be improper to enable a transfer to be made by Order in Council of a project in a foreign or a Dominion territory when, in fact, the Colonial Development Corporation is not empowered by Statute to undertake it. That is the first, and it is a very serious, objection. The proposed new Clause does not say, "any project in a Colonial territory." It says "any project," formulated now or which may be formulated or carried out in the future.

Mr. Stanley: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as the Bill already prevents the Colonial Corporation from acting outside Colonial territories, the transfer of any project to the Colonial Corporation would not affect the existence of the prohibition?

Mr. Rees-Williams: If the proposed new Clause were inserted in the Bill it would give power to His Majesty to make an Order in Council for the transfer of a project, although, in another part of the Bill,

there is no power for the Colonial Development Corporation to carry out such a project. There would be a conflict between two parts of the Measure. That is the first objection, but there are other objections as well.
In the second place, if it was intended to transfer the East African groundnuts project from one Corporation to the other, it would be proper to do so by a Bill amending the present legislation. In our view, in view of the provisions of Clause 3 (1, b) which definitely allocate the groundnuts project to the Overseas Food Corporation, it would be essential to have an amending Bill to effect such a transfer and not to try to get around the position by means of an Order in Council. For every other case there is provision in the Bill for the transfer of any undertaking from one Corporation to another, namely, under Clauses 9 and 10. The proposed new Clause can apply, in fact, only to one project, the groundnuts project in. East Africa. Any other project which may be commenced in the future can be transferred from one Ministry to the other under the existing provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned Clauses 9 and To. Looking at them, I find it difficult to see how the powers which he mentions occur under them.

Mr. Rees-Williams: Clause 9 (1) says:
The responsible Minister may, after consultation with the Corporation, give to them directions of a general character as to the exercise and performance of their functions in relation to matters appearing to him to concern the public interest, and the Corporation shall give effect to Any such directions.
Clause 10 says:
The power of the responsible Minister to give directions to the Corporation shall extend to the giving to them of directions—

(a) as to the disposal of capital assets; or
(b) as to the application of proceeds of such disposals,

notwithstanding that the directions may be of a specific character.
I am advised that under those two Clauses there will be adequate power to transfer any particular project from one Corporation to the other.
If that is so—and I am advised that it is so—the only object of the proposed new Clause would seem to be to move the groundnuts scheme from the Ministry


of Food to the Colonial Office or from the respective corporations operating under them. If it is proposed to do that—we do not desire to do it—it should be done by legislation and not by Order in Council. We have, as at present advised, no intention whatsoever of moving the groundnuts scheme from the aegis of the Ministry of Food. We believe that the Minister of Food and the Overseas Food Corporation have done a fine job during the period in which the scheme has been in operation and we have every confidence that they will carry out their obligations to Parliament, to the people of the territory and to His Majesty's Government in the best possible manner. I therefore ask that this Clause be withdrawn or, if it is pressed to a Division, that it be rejected.

Dr. Morgan: I hope the House will accept this Clause. I was one of the Members in Committee who objected very much to the Overseas Food Corporation having full power to act by itself. I believe that all these things concerned with Colonial development should be in the hands of one Minister. It is true that the Minister of Food argued in Committee that he wanted to have power to deal in Dominions in which the Colonial Secretary was equally concerned. A special Bill could be brought in for that purpose, but dividing power between two Ministries to deal with any matters concerning Colonies, as in this Bill, seems to be quite wrong unless it is done in such a way that one Department is subservient to the other and the Bill gives the Colonial Secretary full control over anything happening in a Colony.
We have heard the reasons given by the Under-Secretary, and if I may say so with respect, they seemed very weak. I say "with respect" because in the course of my hon. Friend's remarks the Minister of Food looked round at me rather sternly as if a look from him would affect my view, and when I protested, he said it was amusing. I am not accustomed to boxing the compass politically. I have been in the Labour Party all my life and have never ventured out of it. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is unnecessary."] Whether it is unnecessary or not—I am making my own speech—it is vital that in a matter of this kind one Minister should have the power. The hon. Gentleman said that Clauses 9 and 10 put the

matter right, but they do not. If hon. Members will look at Clauses 9 and 10 they will find that the Minister responsible for any particular undertaking has the power to make certain arrangements or to ask for a change, but suppose there is a dispute on any matter between the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Minister of Food as to who shall have the final say. Any matter concerned with food developments in the Colonies should not be in the hands of the Minister of Food, but in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I have had representations from most Colonies—certainly Africa and the West Indies—and the unofficial opinion there is that the Secretary of State for the Colonies should have the power to act and not the Ministry of Food, which is regarded—I do not think they are right—as a permanent Ministry under temporary conditions in Great Britain.
5.15 p.m.
The Under-Secretary has stated the objections and said that changes should take place by means of a new Act rather than by Order in Council. I disagree with the Ministry of Food interfering in Colonial matters. If it has to interfere, it should be subservient to the Colonial Office and the Colonial Secretary. This is a justifiable position for us to take up both in Committee and here. This Clause can be commended to any reasonable person having regard to the difficulties that may arise between one Department and another.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: We on this side of the House welcome very much the intervention of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) who, I am glad to see, was undeterred by that fairly stern smile given to him by the Minister of Food after some interjection of his. We are glad to see that the look of doubt on the face of the Colonial Secretary deepened to quite a considerable extent. We feel very strongly that there can be no harm in this Clause and that there can be a considerable amount of good. As the Under-Secretary said, it applies entirely to the groundnuts scheme at the moment. All of us have the highest admiration for the individuals who are trying to make the scheme work. All realise that it is a pilot scheme, though a very big one, and that there is considerable doubt as to the final form it will


take. It would, therefore, be of considerable advantage to the Government if they accepted the Clause.
The Colonial Secretary was obviously looking unhappy when the Under-Secretary was making his speech, and we hope that he has a choke-barrel waiting to fire off if there is support for this Clause. The right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) said that this is an administrative matter and not a party political matter. It is permissive, not mandatory, and would give considerable assistance to the Under-Secretary and the Ministry of Food in a few months' time, when they have worked out the high command and the chain of responsibility for the groundnuts scheme, to effect the change without bringing it again before Parliament. I urge the Colonial Secretary to go on. In a few moments his doubt may have resolved itself and he may be able to give us the answer we desire.

Mr. Rankin: I am sorry that I did not hear the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley). I hope that I shall not repeat any point he made. I want to support the Clause from one simple point of view. It seems to me that if the Minister of Food is to be solely charged with these functions, he will find himself up against a conflict of interests. It is his function as the Minister of Food to obtain for the consumers in this country as large a quantity of food at as cheap a price as he can possibly get. One of the purposes of this Measure is to provide that food. That will be one of the immediate and pressing purposes. At the same time, it is one of the functions or purposes of the Bill to see that the level of life of the African is raised and that his social standards are improved.
It is very difficult to see how the Minister will resolve the problems that will beset him in maintaining—I will leave aside the word "maintaining"—in giving the African still higher standards of living and at the same time extracting food at the cheapest possible price for the consumers in this country. That conflict has already arisen in other spheres between the Minister of Food and the Colonial Secretary, who has sometimes had to defend the interests of the Colonies against the interests of the Ministry of Food. It is bad enough when this conflict occurs between two Ministers but, when it occurs

within one Minister, it is difficult to resolve, and it is in order to prevent that arising that I would suggest that my right hon. Friend gives careful consideration to this Clause and, if possible, gives it his support.

Sir Arthur Salter: I shall support the inclusion of this Clause in a few sentences because the major considerations behind the proposal have been stated before, both on Second Reading in this House and in Committee upstairs. We are now dealing, not with the major change in the Bill advocated on those earlier occasions, but with a modest permissive Clause for which I should have thought the case was overwhelming. Perhaps I may recall shortly to the House the main considerations in the minds of those of us who wanted a greater change in the Bill but who would at least like to see the Government going as far as this permissive Clause.
First, there is the obvious advantage of one Minister, with one chain of responsibility, responsible for the different schemes taking place in a Colony. In the second place, it is perfectly clear that any particular operation, such as will he carried out in this food development, will involve in any Colony a series of rather difficult priorities. The people engaged in that task must be anxious, naturally and professionally, to get ahead of the people engaged in other tasks in regard to the acquisition of skilled labour, transport, and many other things of which there is a shortage. Surely it is desirable that, when the Government appear in relation to a problem of that kind in a Colony, it should be in the form of the Governor and officials responsible to the appropriate Minister in the Government who have a responsibility for the balance of all those different competing interests.
In the third place, I venture to remind the House of the consideration put so strongly by the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) on Second Reading, namely, the extreme desirability that when the Government go into a Colony, they should be quite obviously and unmistakably the Minister of the Government with the appropriate chain of official responsibility to the Minister of the Government, whose primary interest is the interest of the inhabitants and not a Minister whose secondary interest is the interest of the inhabitants after a primary


interest which is that of the inhabitants of this country.
I suggest that those three considerations were very powerful in support of the major change proposed earlier in the consideration of this Bill, but if the case for that was strong, I suggest the case for the present proposal is overwhelming. This is not a compulsive but a permissive proposal, and if the Minister of Food now desires to reject it, what is the purpose? It is not to avoid what might prove to be a future inconvenience, if he is right in the view that he has taken hitherto; it is to secure the protection of his own case against his colleagues in the same Government, if the Government should later be clearly convinced that the original arrangement was wrong. Are the Government really to consent to the rejection of a proposal offering them the permissive power of making a change if, and only if, that change should prove to be desirable, because they desire to protect one Minister and one Department in the Government against another Minister in the Government should the Government as a whole afterwards think that the second Minister should be entrusted with the responsibility?

Mr. Scott-Elliot: Like the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) I feel that this Clause cannot possibly do any harm and it might do a great deal of good. I will give as objectively as possible the reasons why I feel it will do good, but I want to make it perfectly plain that I am in no way speaking against the Minister of Food, whose Overseas Food Corporation will do admirable work, I am sure, in particular territories, in so far as they are not Colonial territories. I consider it is unsuitable for them to operate in Colonial territories. My first reason has already been given admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin). It is that there will be a dual responsibility in the mind of the Minister of Food. In that he will be, on the one side, charged with getting food for the people of this country at the lowest possible price and, at the same time, charged with having regard to the well-being of the native inhabitants, it seems to me that there is bound to be some clash.
Secondly, I am convinced that at some later date the Overseas Food Corporation

will find itself competing with the small, indigenous producers. That is not likely to happen at present, or necessarily for four or five years but, at some later date when there is a greater supply of food in the world, the Overseas Food Corporation will find itself in fairly acute conflict with the small native producers. The right person to be in charge of the Corporation operating in Colonial territories must inevitably, therefore, be the Colonial Secretary who is the father and friend of these Colonial people.
My third reason is one which I gave in Standing Committee. I remember so well what the Minister of Food said. He tried to ride away with the ingenious argument that no simple Swahili-speaking native could possibly understand the difference between these two Corporations; that, indeed, it would be quite impossible for him to understand the difference between public and private ownership. But, with great respect, that is not the point. The point is that there are agitators in these Colonial territories who are only too pleased to take advantage of anything to the detriment of His Majesty's Government. They would seize on this and would represent the Minister of Food as a kind of master who was out to exploit the Colonial people, and many of the Colonial people would believe it. It could be answered completely were my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary to be in charge, as he could say, "My primary interest is the interests of the inhabitants of this territory."
I do not think that argument can be challenged, and I should like to hear the Front Bench trying to answer it, because it is far more substantial than anything they have endeavoured to put forward. If necessary, I could give examples of agitators in various Colonial territories who would undoubtedly take advantage of a division of this kind. We want some quick way of shifting the responsibility from the shoulders of the Minister of Food to those of the Colonial Secretary. It is nothing very big for which to ask, and I do not believe it is necessary to bring in amending legislation. I cannot understand why my right hon. Friend does not accept this proposal.

5.30 p.m.

Sir Peter Bennett: I wish to emphasise what has been said as to the responsible nature


of this proposal, and the advisability of the Government accepting it. I would not have ventured into the Debate, as I was not a member of the Committee upstairs, but for the testimonial which the Under-Secretary paid to the Overseas Food Corporation in connection with this matter. I know the difficulties of the groundnuts scheme. I have information from people who have just returned from Africa who emphasise that we should not imagine there is going to be any quick increase of food for our country as a result of those operations. How true that is I do not know, but I have been warned not to expect too much.
When the scheme was launched, people in this country gained the idea that it would provide them with additional rations in a short time. I am sure all who have had anything to do with it know that it is going to be a long job and I wonder whether when we have the additions to our food, the Ministry of Food will still be in existence. There will be questions which the Colonial Office will have to handle on a broader basis, such as those of railways, roads and docks, which will have to be developed by the Colonial Office. I think the day will come when it will be necessary to make some re-arrangement. In my business career I have always preferred to make arrangements for altering a plan if necessary and to make such arrangements that alterations can easily be made. The Government may be very glad of a Clause of this description by which they could make an alteration which they do not envisage at the moment, but which may be necessary when the scheme is developed further. In their own interests they should accept a Clause which would enable them to handle difficulties which they cannot see at the moment.

Mr. Skinnard: Were it not for the modesty of the proposed Clause, which has been alluded to by so many hon. Members, I do not think I should be so puzzled over it. I can understand opposition to the Ministry of Food being in charge of any development in any colony, but I cannot understand a permissive Clause, half the force of which is already lost if one studies Clause 3 of the Bill:
Provided that the Corporation shall not take in hand for the purpose of the discharge of their duty under paragraph (a) of this subsection the investigation, formulation or carrying out of a project to be carried out in a

colonial territory unless the Secretary of State has invited them so to do.
If that Clause means what it appears to mean, this new Clause has only validity on the one scheme, the groundnut scheme at present in operation in Tanganyika, because, from the passage of this Bill, in effect the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the case of any territory under his jurisdiction, will have to make up his mind which is the more effective instrument to carry out his purpose for that Colony and the people of that Colony, the Overseas Food Corporation or the Colonial Development Corporation. A great deal of unnecessary fuss has been made about possible divergence of interest between two Ministers sitting in the same Cabinet. After all, the two Ministers are part of a larger body which has the final determination of policy, and it is open to any Cabinet of any date to make adjustments between the jurisdiction of any two Ministries as it is deemed wise for the benefit of those people for whose well-being the Ministries exist.
The fact which has been stressed, that this permission does not mean anything unless the need arises, seems to me to vitiate the argument for it. If it is such a modest proposal, and if Clause 3 cuts away some of the proposed purposes of the new provision, it would seem just pious and meaningless. I do not think it can be seriously suggested from any side of the House—we are not talking of this as a party matter as party does not come into it, but are thinking about the benefit of the peoples of the Commonwealth, including ourselves, and this is a matter on which we all try to do our best—that at present the groundnut scheme should at this stage be handed to the control of the Colonial Office.
Upstairs we have learned of the very friendly co-operation existing between the two Ministries on this matter, and of the way in which the wishes of the Governor and the Government of Tanganyika have been respected over certain observations which were made on some things which were not in accord with the best interests of the natives working there. We are also assured that where public utilities are created by the Corporation they will, when developed, be the property of the Colony and, therefore, of the people of the Colony concerned. What we should do is to encourage closer co-operation of the


two corporations, especially as the Overseas Food Corporation can undertake difficult and delicate mixed operations in both Colony and Dominion, where they are adjacent. It would be impossible in such cases to employ the Colonial Development Corporation. Because this Clause does not add to the value of the Bill, and chiefly because it is so modest and permissive, I cannot see any reason for it, and I must vote against it.

Colonel Wheatley: I wish to refer to the administrative side of the question, which I think is of importance. The hon. Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard) has spoken of two Ministers who work in close accord and suggested that there are no difficulties. I would remind him that only recently we did not have that same accord between Ministers of the Government and that has cost the country a good deal of money. The question is not whether Ministries work together, but what is happening in a Colony. There will be officials of the Ministry of Food, and officials of the Colony, under the Secretary of State, working there. Who is to decide between them as to where their duty lies? The question of shipping has been mentioned, and there are the priorities on the quayside and on the railway, priorities of labour and so on. I have had a little experience of administration in Africa, and it seems to me that there will be trouble unless someone on the spot, say, the Governor, answerable to the Secretary of State, can have a decisive place in the relations between the Corporations. He must be the deciding factor; he must be able to say what are to be the priorities.
There is nothing in this Bill to say that the Minister of Food cannot come along and say, "I shall have these materials moved up the line at once." If that sort of thing happens there will be constant trouble between the officials of the two Ministries. From an administrative point of view, I should have thought that the Government would have welcomed this opportunity of getting out of a difficulty which was pointed out to them during the Second Reading Debate. We shall have two kings of Brentford here, and, therefore, there will be trouble. However well two kings may work in London, I am certain that they will not work well in the

Colonies. I beg the Secretary of State to stand up for himself in this matter and say, "I am responsible to the House of Commons for the Colonies. I cannot have another Minister walking in and taking responsibility away from me. All the officials in this Colony should be under my jurisdiction." It would be a great mistake to bring in another Minister to share those responsibilities. Even on administrative grounds alone—and strong grounds have been put forward on all sides of the House—I hope that the House will support this new Clause.

Mr. Stanley: I wish to make a final appeal to the Minister to look upon this new Clause in a conciliatory spirit. I assure him that it was not moved in any spirit of hostility, but to give an administrative convenience which at some future date some Government or other might find helpful. I was disappointed by the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary. His main argument appeared to be one of drafting—that if the Food Corporation had set up a project, say, in North Queensland, I should, by this new Clause override the whole purpose of the Bill, and it would be possible to transfer the project to the Colonial Secretary. Everyone knows that that is not my intention. I do not myself believe that the new Clause would have that effect, but if it did, it would be the simplest thing, by inserting four words "in a Colonial territory" after "Overseas Food Corporation," to give the new Clause the meaning which everyone knows it is intended to bear. That was, I think, the main argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman. I do not think it was one of great validity.
The hon. Member for East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard) put forward, with great seriousness, an argument which I think was invalid. He said that owing to the fact that once this Bill was law the Colonial Secretary would have to give permission for a project to be started by the Food Corporation in Colonial territories, this new Clause would never be operative, except in the case of the groundnuts scheme. That is not quite the case, because it is possible that at one time a Colonial Secretary may think it wise, for various reasons, to allow the Food Corporation to start a project. It may be that in three, four or five years' time the project will have reached the full stage of development, that it will have become a


more or less routine arrangement, and that, therefore, the original reasons having disappeared, the advantage might lie in transferring it to the Colonial Corporation. It is that kind of case that would be covered by the new Clause, but not by the Bill as it stands.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Skinnard: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that that raises an even greater difficulty—the tenure of office and terms of service of the different kinds of people in the Colonial Civil Service and in the Overseas Corporation?

Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member is not doing himself justice. He knows that there is no question involved of transferring from the Corporation to the Colonial Service; it is a question of transferring from one Government Corporation to another Government Corporation, and presumably the terms of service in both will be on a parity.
The other arguments used by the hon. Gentleman were, first, that this point was already covered by Clauses 9 and 10. If, in fact, that is so, that is all the more reason for accepting this new Clause, because clearly there can be no objection to it. I confess that it is hard for the layman to think that when Clauses 9 and 10 were drafted, either the draftsmen or the Ministers had any idea in their heads that these Clauses could be used for such a transfer as I have now suggested. It has never been mentioned by Ministers at any previous stage of the Bill, and I should be interested to hear whether any of them had in fact envisaged such a possibility until it was found as an ingenious answer to a new Clause which might well be accepted.
I do not intend to enter at the moment into the merits of the groundnuts scheme. There may be a further stage on which it may be possible to say something on that matter—if we were not so terribly handicapped by the fact that the Minister of Food has not yet lived up to the promise made last spring that we should have a report of the operations of this Corporation last September, and the further promise he made, on the Second Reading of this Bill, which took place in the early days of November, that the Report was nearly ready and would soon be published. That is a point which I can develop better at a later stage.
With regard to the groundnuts Corporation, I wish to make two points. The first is that we on this side of the House made it plain on the Committee Stage that we were convinced, by the arguments of the Minister of Food, that whether it was right or not in the first place for the Minister of Food to have responsibility for that scheme, it was, during the period of development, quite impossible to make the transfer. There is no intention, by this new Clause, of getting, as was rather suggested, some backdoor method of transferring the responsibility for the scheme. We have accepted the Minister's contention. But when I am told that if at some future date the Government of the day, the Minister of Food of the day and the Colonial Secretary of the day all agree that the original functions of the Minister of Food in this scheme have been exhausted, and that the moment has come when it would be better run under the auspices of the Colonial Secretary, and when I am told that it is absolutely essential, if that change is to be made to make it by amending this Statute, I cannot see the force, of that argument at all.
Why would it not be perfectly possible, and why would it not be for the convenience of any Government, to make the change by Order in Council? I do not think that when the time comes anyone will think such a change to be of such transcendent importance that they will demand all the elaborate processes of passing a Bill through Parliament. On the other hand, anyone who has had experience of Government knows perfectly well that the Leader of the House and Chief Whip look with a certain anxiety on any proposal for new legislation, and whereas at any time it would be quite easy to make a change of this kind which was agreed upon, by means of an Order in Council, those charged with arranging the programme of the Government might easily burke an amending Act of Parliament.
I am not to be regarded as one who does not stand up for the privileges of Parliament, but I do say that what would be a purely administrative action of transfer from one Corporation to another could be quite sufficiently ventilated in Parliament by the opportunities given for the discussion of an Order in Council.


I cannot see that as the Parliamentary Secretary has told us, this is a change which could and should in the highest constitutional manner only be effected by an amending Clause. In all those circumstances I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the new Clause is moved only to meet the possible convenience of some Government or other. It has neither hostile intention nor hostile effect. It does not ask the House to decide what we shall ask them to decide, on the next Amendment—whether it is wise in fact that the Food Corporation should go into Colonial territories too. All it does is to provide the administrative convenience which at some future date may be found useful.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): I think we ought to be quite clear about what we are discussing. The right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) has made that clear in his opening remarks and again in his closing remarks, but I think one or two hon. Members who have not been through the long discussion upstairs are, very naturally, a little confused about the issue we are discussing now and what we shall discuss in the further Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman.
The position is this. For reasons that I will give in a moment, this new Clause can only apply to the possible future transfer of the groundnuts scheme from one Corporation to another. That is the eventuality, and the possibility that we are asked to envisage here, because as the right hon. Gentleman recognised—at least he is doubtful of it, but I do not think he actually challenged it—some future scheme, on the invitation of the Colonial Secretary, and only on his invitation remember, may have been started under the Overseas Food Corporation in a Colonial territory. That is itself an eventuality which may never happen.
Secondly, after that, is a further possibility that the Cabinet of the day may decide that that Overseas Food Corporation scheme in a Colonial territory should be then transferred to the Colonial Development Corporation. We are assured by the legal experts that is fully possible under Clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill. That caused great mirth to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan). I even glanced round

because I was startled by his mirth. I hope I did not glance round sternly, I had not the intention nor, I think, the capacity to be stern. But I was a little startled by his ridiculing that contention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State (Mr. Rees-Williams) because that is the legal opinion of the draftsmen.
I do not believe myself that it is at all likely to arise in practice. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think that Clauses 9 and 10 were drafted in order specifically to cover the possibility that schemes should be transferred from one Corporation to another. I should have thought that in the working of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, it would be most unlikely that it would be practicable or wise to transfer schemes, after they have been in operation for some years, from one Corporation to another. I should have thought it a most impracticable thing to do. This Corporation will become a large organisation with an expert staff and a fund of expert knowledge in that particular part of the world. For this Parliament, or the Government without Parliament, by Order in Council, to transfer schemes from one Corporation to another would be a most unwise thing to do.

Mr. Stanley: Under Clauses 9 and 10 it is possible to transfer schemes. Would the right hon. Gentleman tell us, is it not equally possible to transfer personnel?

Mr. Strachey: No doubt. But to take a group of personnel serving one Corporation which has developed a loyalty to that Corporation and transfer it to another—

Mr. Stanley: Bunk.

Mr. Strachey: Is it bunk?

Mr. Stanley: Loyalty to the scheme, maybe.

Mr. Scott-Elliot: If Clauses 9 and 10 really cover all future schemes why in the name of goodness should we have all this talk? Why cannot the Government accept this?

Mr. Strachey: We think they cover future schemes but they do not cover the groundnuts schemes to which this is particularly addressed. We do not think that to put into the Bill now a Clause, or wording which would suggest, if it were


carried, that it was the intention of the Government, without coming back to Parliament, to transfer this groundnuts scheme from one Corporation to another, would be wise. I am doubtful if it would ever be wise to move a scheme about from one Corporation to another, but I am quite sure it would be disastrous to do it in the case of the groundnuts scheme. It is a very large enterprise, probably larger than any of the future individual schemes which will be started in other Colonial territories. To tear it up by the roots and pass it from one Corporation to another, I really think, is a quite impossible proposition. As the right hon. Gentleman himself recognised, when we argued it out in Committee we all came to that conclusion.
If the House will turn to the Amendments he is going to move, they will see he suggests putting a prohibition on the Colonial Secretary that he is not to have the licence we give him under the Bill to invite, if he wishes, the Overseas Food Corporation to operate in Colonial territory. In the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment designed to take out that permission he excepts specifically the groundnuts scheme in East Africa which he recognises should go on under the auspices under which it has been started. To undo that by putting in this new Clause, which can have no effect but to suggest that, after all, at any moment at some future time this attempt to transfer a scheme from Corporation to Corporation may be executed, would, I believe, be a thoroughly unwise thing to do.
The right hon. Gentleman says, if I may digress for a moment, that he cannot say much about the progress of the groundnuts scheme, because the report has not been laid. I quite agree it is very urgent. It is being printed at the moment and will be in the hands of Parliament by next Monday, if the printers can manage it.

Mr. Stanley: After the Bill has left this House.

Mr. Strachey: After the Bill has left this House. But I do not think the report on the groundnuts scheme will affect the provisions of this Bill. It will simply give a report to the House of the progress which has been made, not under the Overseas Food Corporation but under the managing agency of the

United Africa Company. I think the House will note with interest that the scheme is in its initial phase. It has deeply and heavily engaged with the enemy—to use a military analogy which comes to one's mind—and it is in the stage of having sunk quite important efforts and capital resources and manpower.
6.0 p.m.
To suggest, as the embodiment of this Clause must suggest, that at any moment the Government would take it up and transfer its auspices to another Corporation, would be a great disservice to the scheme, to put it no higher than that. It would be far better to transfer Corporations rather than to transfer schemes. It would be much more practicable, if we were going to do this, to say not that the scheme should be taken over from the Overseas Food Corporation and handed to the Colonial Development Corporation, but that the Overseas Food Corporation should be transferred to the auspices of the Colonial Office. That would be far less disastrous administratively. That, at any rate, would leave the Corporations, the active instruments, intact.
The objection—and it is an overwhelming one felt just as strongly by the Colonial Secretary as by me—is that the Overseas Food Corporation is going to work outside Colonial territory as well as within it—probably principally outside. Its chairman designate left for Australia this morning on the invitation of the Australian Government. Therefore, it is impracticable that that Corporation should be responsible to the Colonial Office. That is the objection to doing that, but it is a far less disastrous thing administratively and by way of disturbance to the scheme to transfer the auspices of the Corporations themselves rather than to try to transfer schemes as between Corporations. Although the Clause does not do that, or force the Government to do it, if it was added to the Bill it would suggest strongly to everyone that that is what the House and the Government had very much in mind and might do at any time. Therefore, the Government must resist making this addition to the Bill. It is totally unnecessary for any possible transfer of future schemes, under Clauses 9 and 10, should they be needed or should they take place. I suggest it would be a great disservice to the groundnuts scheme,


the one scheme to which it would really apply.
I have not dealt with the arguments made on the whole question of the Overseas Food Corporation operating in Colonial territory. Many hon. Members raised that question. All that will come up again when the series of three Amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for West Bristol is reached. I would like to take up one point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) who suggested that there had been conflicts between myself and the Colonial Secretary on the buying of agricultural products. He did not give any instances. I think that in the most friendly possible way we must deny that that has been so. It really is not the case. It would do harm, I think, in Colonial territories if that suggestion were allowed to go uncontradicted.

Mr. Rankin: May I make one point quite clear? My right hon. Friend will recollect that I did lay myself open to

correction when I made the point. It was within my knowledge, not with a particular reference to the Colonial aspect, that sometimes there has been perhaps a little difficulty. However, I am glad to know that that was an entirely wrong impression.

Mr. Strachey: I am very glad that we have had the opportunity to make that clear. I ask the House not to add this new Clause to the Bill. In so far as it has any effect at all—which is a very limited one as I have tried to explain—I feel that it would be a disservice to the one scheme which, after all, is in action today. Everything else we are doing in the Bill is in the future and on paper so far, but the groundnuts scheme is in action. The addition of these words to the Bill would be a disservice to that scheme.

Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 133; Noes, 252.

Division No. 54.]
AYES.
[6.5 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)
P[...]t[...]. Brig. C. H. M


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Haughton, S. G.
Pickthorn, K.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.
Head, Brig. A. H.
Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)


Baldwin, A. E.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C
Prescott, Stanley


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Raikes, H. V


Bennett, Sir P.
Herbert, Sir A. P.
Rayner, Brig. R.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Hogg, Hon. Q
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Bower, N.
Hope, Lord J.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Hurd, A.
Robertson, Sir D. (Streatham)


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Robinson, Roland


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Butcher, H. W.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)
Keeling, E. H.
Sanderson, Sir F.


Byers, Frank
Kerr, Sir J. Graham
Scott, Lord W.


Carson, E.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Shephard, S. (Newark)


Challen, C.
Langford-Holt, J.
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Channon, H.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W


Clarke, Col. R. S.
Lenn[...]x-Boyd, A. T
Smithers, Sir W.


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Lindsay, M. (Solihull)
Spence, H. R.


Cole, T. L.
Linstead, H. N.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Lloyd, Major Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Studholme, H. G.


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Low, A. R. W.
Sutcliffe, H.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Teeling, William


Crowder, Capt. John E.
McCallum, Maj. D.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Darling, Sir W. Y.
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon M S
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Touche, G. C.


Drayson, G. B.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Turton, R. H.


Drewe, C.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Vane, W. M. F.


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Wadsworth, G.


Duthie, W. S.
Mellor, Sir J.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Eccles, D. M.
Molson, A. H. E.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Eden, Rt, Hon. A.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)
Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wheatley, Col. M. J. (Dorset, E.)


Erroll, F. J.
Mullan, Lt. C. H.
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Neill, W. F. (Belfast, N.)
White, J. B. (Canterbury)


Fox, Sir G.
Neven-Spence, Sir B,
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)
Nield, B. (Chester)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Gage, C.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D.
Nutting, Anthony



George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'[...]e)
Odey, G. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H
Major Ramsay and


Grimston, R. V.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Brigadier Mackeson


Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.





NOES.


Acland, Sir R.
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Orbach, M.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Gibbins, J.
Paget, R. T.


Adams, W T. (Hammersmith, South)
Gibson, C. W.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V.
Gilzean, A.
Palmer, A. M. F.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Glanville, J. E. Consett)
Pargiter, G. A.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Parkin, B. T.


Attewell, H. C.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Austin, H. Lewis
Grey, C. F.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Awbery, S S.
Grierson, E.
Pearson, A.


Ayles, W. H.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Perrins, W.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Popplewell, E.


Bacon, Miss A.
Guy, W. H
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Baird, J.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Balfour, A.
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Proctor, W. T.


Barstow, P. G
Hardy, E. A.
Pursey, Cmdr, H.


Barton, C.
Harrison, J.
Randall, H. E.


Battley, J. R.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Ranger, J.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Haworth, J.
Rees-Williams, D. R


Benson, G.
Herbison, Miss M.
Reeves, J.


Berry, H.
Hicks, G.
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Beswick, F.
Holman, P.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Bevan, Rt. Han. A. (Ebbw Vale)
House, G.
Robens, A.


Bing, G. H. C.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Binns, J.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Blenkinsop, A.
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Rogers, G. H. R.


Blyton, W. R.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)


Boardman, H
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Royle, C.


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Segal, Dr. S.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Irvine, A. J (Liverpool, Edge Hill)
Sharp, Granville


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)


Bramall, E. A.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Simmons, C. J.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley)
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Skinnard, F. W.


Buchanan, Rt. Hon. G.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Burden, T. W.
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Burke, W. A.
Keenan, W.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Kendall, W. D.
Snow, J. W.


Chamberlain, R. A.
Key, C. W.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.


Champion, A. J.
Kinley, J.
Sparks, J. A.


Chater, D.
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.
Stamford, W.


Chetwynd, G. R.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Steele, T.


Cluse, W. S.
Levy, B. W.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Cobb, F. A.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Collick, P.
Lyne, A. W.
Stross, Dr. B.


Colman, Miss G. M.
McAdam, W.
Stubbs, A. E.


Comyns, Dr. L.
McEntee, V. La T.
Summerskill, Dr. Edith


Cook, T. F.
McGhee, H. G.
Sylvester, G. O.


Corlett, Dr. J.
McGovern, J.
Symonds, A. L.


Cove, W. G.
Mack, J. D.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Crawley, A.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Grossman, R. H. S.
Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Daggar, G.
McKinlay, A. S,
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Daines, P.
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Thomas, John R. (D[...]ver)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Davies, Hadyn (St. Pan[...]ras, S.W.)
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Thurtle, Ernest


Deer, G.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George
Tiffany, S,


Delargy, H. J.
Mayhew, C. P.
Timmons, J.


Diamond, J.
Medland, H. M.
Titterington, M. F.


Dobbie, W
Mellish, R. J.
Tolley, L


Dodds, N. N.
Messer, F.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon, G.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Dye, S.
Mitchison, G. R.
Usborne, Henry


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Monslow, W.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


Edelman, M.
Moody, A. S.
Viant, S. P.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Morley, R.
Walkden, E.


Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)
Walker, G. H.


Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Mort, D. L.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Moyle, A.
Warbey, W. N.


Ewart, R.
Murray, J. D
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Fairh[...]st, F.
Nally, W.
Wells, P. L. (Faversham)


Farthing, W. J.
Naylor, T. E.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Field, Capt. W. J.
Neal, H. (Claycross)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Foot, M. M.
Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)
Wigg, George


Forman, J. C.
O'Brien, T.
Willey, D. G. (Cleveland)


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Oldfield, W. H.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Gallacher, W.
Oliver, G. H.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)







Willis, E.
Woods, G. S.
Zilliacus, K.


Wills, Mrs. E. A.
Wyatt, W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Wilmot, Rt. Hon. J.
Yates, V. F.
Mr. Collindridge and


Wise, Major F. J
Younger, Hon. Kenneth
Mr. Wilkins.

CLAUSE 2.—(Constitution of Colonial Development Corporation.)

6.15 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I beg to move, in page 2, line 19, after "to," to insert, "tropical agriculture."
This Amendment concerns the constitution of the Colonial Development Corporation. I wish to see somebody who has had experience of tropical agriculture included in this Corporation. I believe that, under this Bill, most of the resources to be developed in the Colonies will be in tropical or semi-tropical areas, and it may be said that a man with experience of farming in England or anywhere else has automatically gained the experience required for farming and for the production of agricultural produce in tropical countries. Beside me here, I have my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), who knows all about farming in Hereford, although I am very doubtful if even he would claim to know all about farming all over England and Scotland, and certainly would not claim such knowledge about tropical and semitropical countries abroad.
This money belonging to the taxpayers may be spent in various parts of the world. It may be spent in a climate where four inches of rain falls in 13 hours, and more than 400 inches of rain in a whole year. It may be spent in an area that suffers from drought, although I believe that that can now be cured by means of an aeroplane going out and firing 300 lbs. of dry ice into the air, which would bring down a rainstorm. The conditions are very different in the tropics from those in this country, and, for that reason, I wish to see the inclusion of someone with experience of tropical agriculture.
I have suffered myself from the experts who have come out from the homeland to the tropics. I have seen gentlemen with high degrees from various universities here come out and advise completely wrong methods. I have seen land ruined by the application of lime, and I have seen other land ruined by too deep cultivation. I have seen an agricultural expert advising people to dig trenches 18 inches deep to break the

land, when the cultivation was shallow and only three inches deep. A lot of this money is going to be spent in Africa, and I believe the African to be the worst cultivator in the whole world. Whether we see him tearing the beautiful soil down the hills of Jamaica into the Caribbean Sea, or whether we see him in Kenya, having grazed the land until there is no more grass on it than there is in the round-about at Piccadilly Circus the results are very often extremely bad. For that reason, we want someone with experience of tropical agriculture helping us to administer this scheme. There are also lots of superstitions to be got over in connection with these developments. There will, perhaps, be people going on strike because they believe that a baby has been buried under a bridge—at least, that used to be a superstition—or there will be a lion taking away their finest cattle.
Of course, all of us here have an extremely selfish interest in this matter—the loss of money that may accrue to the British taxpayers. I have known many men go out to the tropics with optimistic ideas about growing hemp, sisal, cotton, and tea, who lost their money, although they had received excellent advice. However, it was their own money they were losing. I tremble to think what is going to happen now when it is the taxpayers' money, and when, instead of hundreds or thousands of pounds, there is going to be the chance of losing millions of the taxpayers' money. I think that the inclusion of these very simple words would help to safeguard that money, and that the Government would be well advised to include in the Corporation someone with experience of tropical agriculture. None of us wants to do without basic petrol for another two years owing to the fact that a big loss is made by this Corporation. With those words I commend this Amendment to the Government.

Colonel Wheatley: I beg to second the Amendment.
I am very happy to do so because this is a very important Amendment. I can see no reason why the Government should resist it. They might very well say that it is covered by the word "science," that


the Secretary of State should choose someone with scientific knowledge, or, indeed, that it might be included in the final lines of the Clause where it talks about
securing that adequate experience of those matters obtained in Colonial territories. …
That being so, I cannot see why the Government should not accept this very simple Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the senior Member for Down (Sir W. Smiles) who has had experience in other parts of the world besides Africa, which he particularly mentioned. Of course, Africa is uppermost in my mind. Thirty or forty years ago many a promising scheme was ruined by lack of experience of those who were running them, especially in the agricultural world.
My hon. and gallant Friend mentioned the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin). I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman went out to Africa today without any special experience, he would find it very difficult, with only his English experience, to contend with the different climate, the different soil and with the different labour. Any scheme with which he dealt would probably be a failure in the end, and he would probably lose a deal of money over it. I have seen that sort of thing happen many times in the past, but, in more recent years, when we have had more experienced tropical agriculturists available, such schemes have gone ahead with much more success.
I hope that the Minister of Food has been able to draw on a good many experienced tropical agriculturists in connection with his groundnuts scheme because I am perfectly certain that scheme will not succeed unless such experienced men are dealing with it. Not only is the actual growing of crops important; it is vastly important to have a knowledge of the plant diseases which suddenly arise, and which may never have been heard of before. If men with experience gained in the last 20 or 30 years are available, it will be a great advantage to any scheme. Although this Amendment may seem redundant because science is already included in the Clause, I hope that the Government will accept it so as to make quite certain that men with experience of tropical agriculture will be selected by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Rankin: I intended to ask the hon. and gallant Member for Down (Sir W. Smiles) before he sat down whether he could explain if there is any difference between tropical and sub-tropical agriculture.

Sir W. Smiles: I think there is a very great difference indeed. In fact, there are very many differences. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard the whole of my speech.

Mr. Rankin: I did my best to follow it.

Sir W. Smiles: At any rate, the hon. Gentleman did not suffer from the inability to hear it. I was pointing out that some areas suffer from drought—they sometimes do not get rain for a whole year—and that other areas get 400 inches in a year. Therefore, I consider that there is great scope for the different treatment of soil.

Mr. Rees-Williams: The Government have very much in mind the matters put to us by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Senior Member for Down (Sir W. Smiles) and the hon. and gallant Member for East Dorset (Colonel Wheatley). We are fully aware of the necessity for always having in mind the requirements of tropical agriculture. We also know that tropical agriculture differs in kind, in degree, and in every other way from home agriculture. But we have covered the necessity for a knowledge of tropical agriculture among the members of the Corporation by inserting in the Clause which we are now discussing the words "primary production." Those words cover tropical agriculture, sub-tropical agriculture, and any other type of production of primary products which there may be. To put one particular type of primary production or one particular type of agriculture, into a Clause of this kind would be quite useless. In fact, by being inserted before the words "primary production," it might have a restricting effect upon those two wider words at present in the Bill. Therefore, we believe that it is highly undesirable to limit the expression "primary production," either in this or any other way.
To reassure the hon. and gallant Gentleman I would say that the Deputy-Chairman of the Colonial Development Corporation Board is Sir Frank Stock-dale, who was for many years the agricultural adviser to the Secretary of State


for the Colonies. He has an unrivalled knowledge of tropical agriculture and knows the difficulties of agriculture in every country in the Colonial Empire. I do not think it is going too far to say that he has visited every country in the Colonial Empire which has an agricultural problem. Therefore, the mover of the Amendment and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who supported it can rest assured that their purpose—which we appreciate—in putting down this Amendment will be amply covered by the Clause as it exists, and that the Government will never for one moment—nor, indeed, will the Corporation itself—forget the requirements of tropical agriculture.

6.30 p.m.

Sir W. Smiles: I am not satisfied with the reply of the Under-Secretary. "Primary production", can cover anything. The coalmines in Southern Rhodesia will be developed, and the best man to send out to advise on the development of those coalmines would probably be a man who had been working in the mines in Wales, Durham or Scotland. But tropical agriculture is a different thing. I agree with the remarks of the Under-Secretary about Sir Frank Stock-dale. At the moment there could be no better man than Sir Frank Stockdale, but this Colonial development will not finish when Sir Frank retires or dies. It will go on, and people in the future will be looking at this Bill to see the actual words which are in it. I believe it would be improved very much by the inclusion of the words "tropical agriculture."

Amendment negatived.

CLAUSE 3.—(Establishment of Overseas Food Corporation, and functions thereof.)

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I beg to move, in page 2, line 33, after "Kingdom," to insert:
other than in Colonial territories.
This and the next two Amendments—in line 36, at beginning, insert:
Notwithstanding anything in paragraph (a).
and in line 41, leave out from beginning, to end of line 45, hang together. Have I your permission, Mr. Speaker, to take these three Amendments together?

Mr. Speaker: I called the first Amendment without realising that the next two go with it.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: These Amendments caused the greatest amount of discussion upstairs, and they are, in fact, the only real bone of contention between the Government and those on this side of the House. Some of the points which have been submitted upstairs have already been touched upon in the discussion on the new Clause, and to some of them the Minister of Food gave a reply, but I would like to put as briefly and as clearly as possible the case which we made upstairs.
We on this side of the House believe that in these Colonial territories the Colonial Secretary should be dominant and should be responsible for all developments within these territories, for which we in Parliament are responsible, whether of a welfare or of an economic nature. Obviously they hang together very closely. We are very anxious that there should be no misunderstanding, but we feel that the selection of the Minister of Food as an independent Minister with certain powers in these territories is not in the best interests of all concerned. There are two reasons why we believe this is so. The first is the psychological reason. With the best will in the world, there is a considerable fear among many people that these public Corporations under the Ministry of Food will become big monopolistic Corporations, the object of which is primarily to increase the rations of the voters and taxpayers here in Britain. That is the blunt fact. Therefore, under the Minister of Food, that factor will have priority over the welfare and wellbeing of the people in these Colonial territories.
I have had a certain amount to do with the personnel who make up these Corporations, and I have no fear at all that with the existing personnel there will be any such conflict in fact. I believe it is largely a psychological factor—that when difficulties arise which are detrimental to the wellbeing of the people in Tanganyika, for instance—incidentally, I think it is a pity that so much discussion has centred around the groundnuts scheme in Tanganyika—our actions will be regarded as having been carried out for the benefit of all of us in this country, including myself,


and not for the benefit of the people of Tanganyika for whom we are responsible. This psychological factor is probably much larger than a great many hon. Members opposite realise. The backwardness of these people and the way they regard the Governor and the Secretary of State as His Majesty's representatives who are responsible for their wellbeing is probably far greater than is appreciated by those of us in this House who have not had practical experience in these territories. I say to the Minister of Food, without any detriment to him and with the greatest respect, that the fact that the Minister of Food rather than the Colonial Secretary has overriding responsibility for the production of food in Tanganyika will, if any difficulty arises, be to the detriment of whoever is trying to carry out this task in Tanganyika.
The other point is largely an administrative one. We must be prepared to accept a certain amount of administrative inconvenience in this dichotomy between two Ministers, one of whom is responsible for the practical side of the production of groundnuts in Tanganyika, and the other for its political aspect. We feel that in any territory where the Colonial Development Corporation works, both the Corporation and the Government of the territory should he responsible to the same Minister here in London. In the case of Tanganyika it is essential that there shall be one man responsible for all the administration, who will not have to send back certain problems to be resolved here in London, even presumably at Cabinet level, if there is such a thing as a conflict between the Colonial Secretary and the Minister of Food over these tremendous tasks which have been set for the people who are carrying out the job on the spot. In the House of Commons, we find that if we put down Questions some of them find their way to the Minister of Food and some find their way to the Colonial Secretary. That is merely another aspect of the same problem. It is essential that we should have in London and overseas one person who is responsible for the whole task of carrying out these schemes in territories which are under direct British rule.
I think these arguments have been put at considerable length upstairs, and they are well known to many hon. Members on both sides of the House. We are not

putting forward these points for the purpose of making difficulty—I think that is appreciated by the Government—but we feel most sincerely that this is primarily a psychological problem, and that it is of the greatest importance that in all these territories where we are pressing on, rightly and properly, with these tremendous schemes of development of all sorts, there should be one individual responsible, and that it should be the Colonial Secretary whose reputation both personal and in the office which he holds stands so high.

Mr. W. Fletcher: I beg to second the Amendment.
I wish to produce one or two other arguments in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker). On the psychological point, we must realise that in Africa the groundnuts scheme, which has become the centre of these discussions, is in a very immature stage and, to a certain extent, what we are doing there is guess-work. We cannot quite see how the scheme is going. Therefore, at this stage it is very difficult to judge how this form of dual control will work out. In a way, it is starting under bad auspices because this being a large corporation, it will tend to put aside production by the peasant proprietor. Throughout every stage of this Bill I have been one of those, who with a great deal of support, have put forward the thesis that the development of our Colonies, Dominions and other parts of the world where these Corporations may wish to operate ought to be regarded as just as much an opportunity for educating and improving the peasant proprietor as for the big mechanised corporation—mechanised in thought as well as manned up mechanically.
The psychological effect of dual control is very inimical to that interest, because the big Food Corporation does not as yet work on the lines of having the educated peasants as the object of its work but so much more on the large-scale, mechanised person, the highly scientific big-scale method of working. That has certain very great disadvantages because, by and large, less of the result of the work flows into the territories because the actual peasant proprietor himself is not producing and getting a direct reward. That is one of the dangers of having this Corporation.
Let us turn to other parts of the world and see some territories where development has gone on for many decades. Let us consider Malaya, for example, where the Minister of Food does not operate and where the Colonial Secretary knows that a situation is arising of great difficulty. Why? Because Malaya, which is the biggest dollar arsenal in the British Empire, through its rubber and tin, is beginning to feel extremely restive that such a small proportion of the work done in Malaya is accruing to Malaya. We acquire the dollars and we restrict what is sent to Malaya in the way of cotton goods and everything else. That is causing great unrest because not sufficient of the result of the work of Malaya is actually going to the country itself. It does show the extreme danger and difficulties we are going to face in the future, and certainly it is going to be the cause of many more national movements and the acceleration of movements which are quite healthy in themselves but the pace of which would not normally be so great if it were not for outside influences. It is an extremely important thing in the sort of atmosphere this form of production is going to bring in its wake, quite inevitably. The Colonial Secretary should be the only person in the eyes of the native producer and of the employee of this Corporation to be complete master in the territory for which he is responsible. Obviously, what is being done here, though it may be perfectly good in intention, is in actual fact going to take a turning quite different from that which the Minister and all on this side of the House desire.
This is already showing itself to some extent in the keenness of the Minister of Food to make a success of what one of his people, I am told, described rather unwisely as an Eldorado. There has been such a great blaring of trumpets, such a high raising of hopes about what we know is really nothing but a large-scale experiment capable of greater delay, of greater difficulties, inevitably greater competition and inevitably greater losses than the public have been led to realise at the present moment. Just recently the Minister of Food used the words "strongly suggests." The strong suggestion has been created in the minds of the people in this country—not through the impingement of the Colonial Secretary, who is not exaggerating or using the word "El-

dorado"—that this country is going to draw a vast lode or rich claim of groundnuts and other produce which is going to be for our benefit.
I believe the Colonial Secretary must have very grave doubts in his mind whether the entry of the Ministry of Food into these territories is not to have the effect of upsetting the equilibrium of these territories. It is showing itself already when transport is depleted leaving high and dry, sisal which cannot be shipped. That is happening in West Africa where we have a new and ambitious Minister entering into territory which has been wisely administered. I lived for three or four years in Tanganyika and I have a little knowledge. I believe in due course the duality of control will show, in spite of the best will in the world on the part of the Ministry of Food, that it will work out greatly to the detriment of those inhabiting the territory and to the scheme which Members on this side of the House wish well and which they are trying quite genuinely to assist in the early steps, which can be hesitant ones and which are possibly over-confident.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Rees-Williams: The effect of this Amendment would be to stop the Overseas Food Corporation from undertaking projects in Colonial territories except for the East African groundnut scheme. It would restrict the freedom of choice of the Colonial Office or of any particular Colonial Government if it was desired to make use of the experience which had been gained in Tanganyika or elsewhere by the Overseas Food Corporation. If this Amendment were carried that would no longer be a possibility in the Colonial territory. All that experience would be wasted so far as the Colonies are concerned. Secondly, supposing in Tanganyika, or in a neighbouring Colonial territory, it was desired to have the co-operation of the Overseas Food Corporation that would no longer be possible if this Amendment were carried. Neither in Colonial territories adjoining Tanganyika nor in Colonial territories far distant from Tanganyika could the experience of the Overseas Food Corporation be used. We have heard from the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) about the psychological factor, and the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) also


mentioned the psychological factor. The hon. Member for Bury also referred on two or more occasions to dual control. I would have said so far as the psychological factor was concerned the average inhabitant of Colonial territory would be glad that there was in Whitehall a Ministry which was not itself concerned in the success or otherwise of the scheme and which could always look' after their interests. I believe the psychological factor works the other way and that the people of the territories will, in fact, be glad to think that there is a Colonial Office which will in co-operation with the Ministry of Food treat this particular Overseas Food Corporation, which has been set up by it, as if it were a limited liability company set up by private enterprise.

Dr. Morgan: Exactly.

Mr. Rees-Williams: So far as the ordinary person in the territory is concerned he has every bit as much power to go to the local government or to the central government or to the Colonial Office in Whitehall for protection as he would have if this Corporation were a limited liability company acting in the normal way under private enterprise and I do not see why anybody has to say "exactly" about that, because that is a very great safeguard which he might not feel he had—we are dealing with psychological matters now—if the Food Corporation was to be operated by the Colonial Office and not by the Ministry of Food.

Dr. Morgan: Has the psychological aspect had that effect where the Nigerian coal mines and the Nigerian railways are concerned?

Mr. Rees-Williams: The Ministry of Food is not running Nigerian railways and these Nigerian railways; of course, are run by the Government of Nigeria and not by a Corporation coming in from outside. There is ample safeguard against any infringement, so far as the people of the territory are concerned, of the labour, the sanitary or any other regulations of the Colonial government. They have to obey the regulations. There has been one case in Tanganyika, where the local government pointed out to the agents running this scheme that certain matters did not meet with their approval, and they had to put those matters right

straight away. So there is ample safeguard for the people of the territory, first in regulations and in strict supervision by the local government, the Government of the Colony, and secondly, in the right of petition which every person has to the Secretary of State.
There is, in fact, no dual control whatsoever. There is no more dual control in this matter than there is when I.C.I. are operating in a territory, or when any other big corporation is operating. There is no dual control. The Ministry of Food will carry out its activities laid upon it by Parliament, and its observance of law and its observance of the regulations of the territory will be enforced by the local government supervised by the Colonial Office. There is no dual control in that at all, any more than there is dual control in the case of any other project carried on by any other company or corporation.
Finally, we have in the Bill, in Clause 3 (1), safeguard against the intrusion—if I may call it so—of the Minister of Food into any Colonial territory in which the Secretary of State for the Colonies does not desire him to enter. He can enter only at the invitation of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and that invitation will be given only after consultation with the local government, the Colonial government, and after full consideration by the Secretary of State of all the circumstances which have to be borne in mind. Therefore, the idea that the Minister of Food and his Corporation can gatecrash into Colonies where he is not desired either by the local government or the Secretary of State is just fantastic. It just could not possibly happen. He would not be able and would not wish to carry any such tremendous liability as he would incur, even if he did get people other than the Secretary of State to agree to his entering.
In these circumstances I would ask the House to reject this Amendment. It is an Amendment which can act only to the detriment of the territories in the Colonial Empire. It is an Amendment which will restrict Colonial governments and the Colonial Office from using the services of the Food Corporation in circumstances in which it is desirable. It will give no further power to resist the encroachment—as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) will call it—of the


Minister, because we already have full power provided in the Bill to resist any such proposal. Therefore, I ask the House to reject this Amendment.

Mr. W. Fletcher: I want to ask the hon. Gentleman a question because he was just now talking about the psychological factor. Does he think that the natives of the country will look upon the man working for the Food Corporation as an official or not?

Mr. Rees-Williams: No. They will not look upon him as an official of the Colonial government. They will look upon him as a servant of the particular Corporation in the scheme. It is the same with the Colonial Corporation.

Mr. Stanley: Hon. Members who were on the Committee upstairs will notice that we have this time put our Amendment down in a different form. We were convinced by the arguments of the Minister of Food that it would be impossible at this stage to transfer the groundnut scheme. He was a little unfair, I think, on the previous Amendment. He drew out that agreement we had given not to transfer now, to cover transfer at some future date. The ground on which we agreed now was, that the scheme was in process of development; but he will remember that his forecast, which is now enjoyed by the public, is that the stage of development will last only five years, and that at the end of five years the whole scheme will already have been developed. Therefore, while we agreed to no transfer now, in what is now only four years' time the position may be different.
There is no need for me to deal in any way with the position of the groundnut scheme, which is not affected in any way by this Amendment. Nor do I think it is necessary to recapitulate at any length the arguments in favour of this Amendment. We have already discussed it on Second Reading; we discussed it at great length in the Committee upstairs; and my hon. Friends who moved and seconded this Amendment have with commendable brevity and lucidity put the arguments again. I am merely going to quote a witness that appears to me to put the argument so well that there is really nothing for me to add. It is the December issue of the Journal of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, a publication and a

society of which, I think, the Secretary of State has some knowledge, and to whose pronouncements at one time he attached some weight. This is what it says:
Many speakers in the Parliamentary debate were critical of leaving responsibility for one of these Corporations to the Ministry of Food. We share those criticisms. It is asking the impossible to expect a Ministry whose first function must be to secure cheap food for British housewives also to act in the interests of producers overseas, which must be—as far as prices are concerned—diametrically opposed to those of their customers at home. Mr. Creech Jones"—
that is, the Colonial Secretary—
himself recently said in the West Indies"—
talking to a Colonial audience—
that the Colonial Office, in dealing with bulk purchases of colonial products, 'always drives the hardest possible bargain with the Ministry of Food, which naturally tries to obtain the supplies at the lowest prices.' This is not meant as a rebuke to the Food Ministry, but it stands to reason that by its nature it is ill-fitted for this particular job. We would feel far happier if the Colonial Office was fully responsible for everything going on in the Colonies.
There have been times in the past when I have not always seen eye to eye with the Fabian Colonial Bureau, but I must say that in this instance they have put a point with clarity and force with which I can only agree, and with which I can really afford to rest content.

Mr. Rankin: I want only to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman for a second. I was—

Mr. Stanley: I gave way because I thought the hon. Member wanted to ask me a question.

Mr. Rankin: I was searching out the instance in my former speech that the right hon. Gentleman gave just now.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Stanley: shall not elaborate the reasons in favour of this Amendment. They are well put in that quotation. I merely wish to deal with some of the arguments that have been put up against it. I found the argument of the Under-Secretary—that everyone who had spoken on this point at any stage was entirely wrong, and that the psychological factor worked the other way—a rather strange one. His argument was that the native Swahili, who we were told by the Minister of Food would not really know what it was all about, would, on the contrary,


be delighted to know that it was all being run by the Minister of Food and that there was another Minister in London, the Colonial Secretary, who could have a quarrel with him if anything went wrong. I bow to the hon. Gentleman's insight into the simple mind of the uneducated African. If the hon. Gentleman says that is the way the native reasons, then I am sure he must be right; but it certainly comes as a great surprise to me.
If that is the view held, as it must be—and not only by himself, because he is not speaking for himself but for his office—why does the Colonial Office come into this at all? Why have not we got rid of all the fears, doubts and suspicions that might arise among the simple native people by merely making the Ministry of Food responsible for everything, everywhere? I cannot take the hon. Gentleman's argument as either very serious or very conclusive. Anyone who knows anything about this problem—some will rate it higher than others and put it more strongly—will say that there is undoubtedly some psychological danger in the control being in the hands of a Ministry whose purpose, and whose proper purpose, is to obtain for the people of this country food at the lowest practicable price. It is quite clear that the psychological danger, as has been pointed out by many hon. Members, does not lie merely in what the ordinary peasant in these countries will think. The danger lies in the impression that is given to him by the agitator. For the agitator's purpose it does not matter at all whether he is making an honest and sincere use of the facts.

Mr. Gallacher: Oh, that will not do. I am an agitator.

Mr. Stanley: But there are agitators and agitators. Compared with the skill of a Colonial agitator I class the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) among the "and agitators." There is a real danger that the agitator can get hold of facts which are undeniable; for example, the fact that the Minister of Food is charged with the responsibility of feeding the people of this country at the lowest practicable price. He can twist and make use of those facts, whatever be the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman; and I have little doubt that the agitator will make use of them, and that he is making use of

them. Therefore, I ask the House to agree—as indeed, I think, most hon. Members experienced in this problem do—that there is a real danger here which may be used against the good name of His Majesty's Government and the good will of our administration.
So far, I have been dealing only with the little grotesquerie raised by the Under-Secretary. The serious argument against this Amendment appears to be that in the Bill there is already power which gives more or less all that is wanted. This Amendment prevents the Minister of Food coming in at all. The Bill says that he shall come in only-on the invitation of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. If I were assured that that argument was a wholly valid one, then I should certainly have to agree that, as we now have to regard the groundnut scheme as an unfortunate fait accompli, for future events an Amendment of this character would be unnecessary. I am not dealing in the least with personalities or with the two right hon. Gentlemen, the Minister of Food and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who at this moment happen to be sitting opposite. I am dealing with this as a matter of machinery of Government, because this is a Bill which may have to last for a great many years.
In the whole working of Government I do not think things will work out in quite the simple way which has been put before us, namely, that the Secretary of State for the Colonies thinks, "Let us grow asparagus in Mauritius," and then asks himself, "Is this a thing I shall do myself, or shall I ask the Minister of Food in to do it for me?" and upon thinking it over decides finally, "Well, the Minister of Food has such special knowledge of the growing of asparagus that I ought to ask him in to do it." I do not think it will work that way at all, but in exactly the opposite way. The Minister of Food will say, "We would like to have for this country a certain kind of foodstuff. I think we could grow that in such and such an area of the Colonial territory," and he will go to the Colonial Secretary and put to him a scheme for growing that foodstuff. It may be that the Colonial Secretary, regarding the whole situation, may not want that particular scheme carried out in that particular territory at all. However, he


will be asked to give his permission, and if he refuses the final decision does not rest with the Colonial Secretary, but the matter becomes one for the Cabinet; two Ministers will be disagreeing on a point which will have to be settled by the Cabinet, and not necessarily at all in accordance with the views of the Colonial Secretary.
We cannot regard this provision as being anything like such a strengthening of the hands of the Colonial Secretary as would be a definite legislative provision that the Minister of Food could not start work in a particular Colonial territory. We are told the effect would be that there might be some cases where we should be deprived quite unnecessarily of the cooperation which we think the Colonial Corporation ought to have from the Food Corporation. Frankly, I do not believe that for one moment. I believe that in pretty well any scheme which the Colonial Secretary wanted to start in a Colonial territory he could get all the co-operation he wanted from the Food Corporation by the loan of one or two key men. It would not be at all necessary for the whole of this vast paraphernalia which has been described to us to become operative. We have been told how immense vested interests will grow up round each particular plan in the Food Corporation, but it would not be in the least necessary for the whole of that great army to march into the territory. One or two key men—who, presumably, would be loaned gladly from one Corporation to another—would, I think, give all the expert advice and cooperation that was needed.
It is in those circumstances that we ask right hon. Gentlemen opposite not to listen to our vain pleadings, not to listen to our arguments, however strong, but to heed at any rate the words of their strong supporters, the Fabian Colonial Bureau, and to show that a few years of office have not altered the reputation they possessed and the adherences they once showed. I hope, even at this late hour, now that the Minister of Food is assured that this Amendment involves no attack upon his groundnut scheme, that he will be prepared to withdraw his ban and allow the Colonial Secretary to accept the Amendment, with which I am sure he is in sympathy.

Mr. Michael Foot: The right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) began his speech by saying that he would not go over the ground which was fully debated on this issue during the Committee stage and on Second Reading, but that he would confine himself to making his argument by means of a quotation from the Fabian Society. I must say that on that account he put his case more powerfully to-day than he has done on any previous occasion. It would be right to consider when these views were put forward by the secretary of the Fabian Society Colonial Group. If my recollection is correct, the statement was made before some of the discussions we have had on this Bill. I always thought that the purpose of our discussions was that we should advance in our opinions on these matters. I have no doubt that if the secretary had had the opportunity of listening to the Debates we had in Committee, he would very rightly have changed his views on this proposition. It is not really a very powerful argument to rake up a newspaper article which appeared long before we had all these interesting and valuable discussions, to which the right hon. Gentleman has contributed so fully.
The second main point of the right hon. Gentleman was to refer to the play which agitators may be able to make with this provision in the Bill. That strikes me as being an extraordinary proposition. If the right hon. Gentleman knew even a quarter as much about agitation as the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), I am sure that he would not advance any such proposition. Apparently, the argument is that if this Corporation is run by the Ministry of Food, the agitators will be able to make what play they want, but if it is run by the Colonial Office, it will be impossible for them to make any play at all. Really good agitators can overcome little points like that. All the agitators throughout the British Empire are not attacking the Food Minister, but the Colonial Office, and all these tales which come from hon. Members opposite of how impossible it would be for agitators to make a case against the Corporation run by the Colonial Office are therefore beside the point. If hon. Members opposite study this matter of agitation a little more carefully, they will come to a wiser conclusion on the matter.
Both the mover and seconder of the Amendment hold some extraordinary views. The hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) said that one of his objections to the Ministry of Food running this Corporation was that it would arouse an exaggerated interest in this matter in this country, and he misquoted, as did the right hon. Gentleman for West Bristol, a statement made by the head of the Food Corporation about building some Eldorado in Africa. I think it is high time that the people had a greater interest in the Colonial Empire.

Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member has entirely misrepresented what was said. My hon. Friend did not say that it would make people take more interest in the Colonial Empire, but that it would lead people to expect far more in help for their rations than they were likely to get.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Foot: I think he was making both points. He said that there had been exaggerated hopes built up in this country about this matter, but exaggerated hopes may arouse interest in the Colonial Empire. It is one of the great merits of this Bill that it will arouse much greater interest in the Colonial Empire throughout the country. The proposer of the Amendment advanced the extraordinary proposition that in his view the Colonial Secretary should be dominant and responsible for all developments in Colonial territories. He does not believe anything of the kind, because there are hundreds of enterprises in operation in the Colonies today in which the Colonial Secretary is not dominant.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: If the hon. Member knew anything at all about Colonial administration he would realise that all people operating in Colonial territories come under the local governor, who in his turn comes under the Colonial Secretary.

Mr. Foot: I am not disputing that. The proposition is that the Colonial Secretary should be responsible for all developments in Colonial territories. There are dozens of enterprises which are not under the Colonial Secretary in that sense. They are private enterprises. What hon. Members opposite are really proposing, although they may not say that this is what they want to propose, is that there shall be a ban on the operations of this Corporation run by the Food Ministry in

Colonial territories, a ban which does not apply to private enterprises.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: The hon. Member has misrepresented me. What we are maintaining is that with these Government corporations the Colonial Office should be predominant. If, for example, the Government are to take powers, as in wartime, to take away cattle from certain people, these powers should be exercised by the Secretary of State for the Colonies and not by the Minister of Food.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Member says that the Colonial Secretary is responsible for all operations inside the British Colonies, but that is not the case, and it is not the position he supports. He says that when a private-enterprise industry comes to a British Colony it operates under the sanction of the Colonial Secretary; but the same sanction applies to the Food Corporation. Hon. Members opposite want to draw a distinction between the conditions under which private enterprise can operate and the conditions under which a public corporation can operate.
I believe that there are great advantages in this proposal of an Overseas Food Corporation. This is a new idea, and it can be of enormous value to the British Colonial Empire. The best service we can do is to assist the Corporation to get on with their job as quickly as possible. The operation of a food corporation under the Ministry of Food can be of great advantage in the British Colonial Empire, because it introduces a new element and a new kind of operation into an area. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan), who said that all the representations which had come from the Colonial Empire were entirely against the Government's proposal. I can assure him that I have had many representations from people who consider it is of great advantage that there should come into these territories a new kind of corporation with a new outlook. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman for West Bristol to laugh. He has great knowledge of the British Empire, but unhappily most of it is out of date.

Mr. Stanley: I do not wish to take away from the hon. Gentleman credit for having spent a week in Jamaica since I went there. I was only laughing at his idea that there was a new progressive spirit in the Corporation set up by the Ministry


of Food as compared with the hidebound spirit of the Corporation set up by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In both cases the Government had to go to outside services, and in both cases it seems that they chose the same kind of admirable man.

Mr. Foot: It the right hon. Gentleman had learnt as much from Jamaica as I did when I went there I am sure that he would not be against the Government in this Debate. I claim that the idea of a great public corporation coming in is something very different from big private corporations coming in for quite other purposes. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot understand the difference between those two propositions then I can understand why he should be sitting on the opposite side of the House.

Mr. W. Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman is saying that this would be an entirely new thing, that there would be an entirely different position, whereas the Under-Secretary argued that the position would be exactly the same.

Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting what the Under-Secretary said. I say that it is quite possible under this Bill, and, under the provision for a Food Corporation, to have a new approach to these problems. There are many persons working inside the Colonial Office and in Colonial territories who take that view, and who think that it is a great advantage that there should be a new element and a new kind of approach towards this problem, not only through the introduction of a Development Corporation, but also through Corporations operating under a different Department as well.
Members opposite have talked about psychological dangers. They say that an injurious effect will be created in the minds of native peoples. They may be antagonistic to the Food Corporation because they think it is an invasion of their sovereignty, if they think that the Food Ministry do not intend to act in co-ordination with their interests. I should have thought that the Food Ministry has one special advantage even over the Colonial Development Corporation, for this reason: the Food Corporaion will also be operating in territories under the control of sovereign Governments, such as

Australia. If those sovereign Governments, over which we have no control, come along and ask the Food Corporation to go into their territories what better proof could there be that the peoples of those territories were keen to see the Corporation thrive?
The great importance of the association between the Food Ministry and the Colonial Empire should be made more explicit. There should be propaganda to explain their true relations. Whether hon. Members opposite like it or not the association of the Food Ministry and British Colonies is of vital importance today, and will increase. As I listened to some of the speeches which have been made in this Debate, I could not help thinking that one of the real objections to this proposal is that Members opposite want to get rid of the Ministry of Food. Indeed, one Member said he regarded the Ministry as a temporary institution and that he thought that the Ministry should, therefore, be excluded from these operations.
We on this side do not regard the Ministry of Food as a temporary organisation, and I am sure that the overwhelming majority of people in the Colonial Empire would view the idea of the Ministry being a temporary organisation as being fraught with great danger for themselves. This is a fact which Members opposite must appreciate. They have a right to make their argument, but I do not think it assists government of the British Colonies very much when they make the argument about great differences between the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Food. Their interests are the same.
The right hon. Member for West Bristol was rather scornful about Jamaica—

Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman has overstepped the limit. He has no right whatever to say that I was scornful of Jamaica. That is a rather serious imputation to make of someone who held my position, and I cannot let it go out that I showed scorn for a Colony for which I have always had the greatest affection. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw.

Mr. Foot: I am prepared to withdraw, but the right hon. Gentleman was scornful of the fact that I had drawn a certain amount of knowledge from my visit to Jamaica. He thought that was funny and he made insinuations about it. I


have withdrawn what I said, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will show equal courtesy in Debate in future. He is very eager and tempted to make insinuations against others, but when anyone hits back he does not take it very well. There has been the recent case of the bananas agreement with Jamaica, in which the Minister of Food and the Colonial Secretary combined to get an agreement which is of immense value to the people of Jamaica. It is only right, and in the interests of the Ministry of Food's reputation throughout the Commonwealth, that these facts should be known.
Whatever the Opposition may say this association between the Ministry of Food and the peoples of the Colonial Empire will grow stronger, and its bonds will become firmer. The developments which have taken place during the past two or three years offer great hopes to the people of the Colonial Empire. It would be an added advantage that the Ministry of Food should become all the more closely associated with them by the kind of proposal which the Government have included in this Bill. I hope, therefore, that for these positive reasons the Government will reject the proposals made by the Opposition.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the action of the Ministry of Food in coming into the picture and providing 4 oz. of rice a day for the people of Malaya is proof of what he has been saying?

Mr. Foot: I am sure that that point is not relevant to this. Debate, but I am also sure that the Ministry has played a big part, against opposition from that side of the House, in carrying out the arrangements made throughout the Far East to prevent widespread starvation during the past few years. If the hon. Gentleman would give a little more credit to the Ministry for these kind of achievements he would do a better service to the people of the Colonial Empire.

Dr. Morgan: I feel very strongly about Colonial administration, and I hope that nothing I say to-night will make the temper of the House any more heated than it has been so far. I have been interested in Colonial affairs ever since my early days in the Colonies, where I was born. I was a Socialist at the age of 21, when I came here, and I have remained a Socialist ever since. I hope

the Government will forgive me on this occasion, because I am very unhappy about this Bill. I am unhappy about it from a Labour and Socialist point of view, because I have a very long association with the Labour and trade union movements. It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) to utter his nice, flippant, sentences which, no doubt, score points. It seems that some have the gift of the gab, but I prefer to have something behind my gift of the gab rather than to rely purely on the weapon of the tongue.
7.30 p.m.
I have spent much time in the Colonies, seeing how people live, their disease, poverty, and destitution. I know something of their psychology, not from a brief visit, but from a study of many years, living among them, going in and around their huts, and seeing how they react towards certain problems. I feel genuinely unhappy that the Colonial Office is not to be the dominant factor in all this business.
I know that the psychology in the West Indies is that they want one Department, one pivot, to whom they can go. This divided interest, in my view, is quite wrong. The hon. Member for Devonport raised the point that some hon. Members opposite had said that development in the Colonies should be under the Colonial Secretary, and because private enterprise was not, he says that their arguments about this thing are all wrong. Is that argument very valid? Some Socialists think that because an enterprise is run by a Government it is necessarily well-run. The railways in Nigeria have been run by the Government for years. Are they good railways? The coalmines in Nigeria have been run by the Government for years. Was there any attention paid to the diseases of the miners there? Is it not a fact, as the present Colonial Secretary knows, that there was a report from one of his officials during the Coalition Government, during the war, in which it was proved that no protection was given to the bare feet and shins of the miners working in Nigeria, and within a year of his recommendation asking that protection should be given, the mortality rate among the native miners, who sometimes live ten to 20 miles from the mines, was reduced by 50 to 75 per cent.
The groundnut scheme originated from private enterprise, and it is now to be run by private enterprise in one Colony; but what about the smaller islands? The whole basis of these schemes is wrong. In my view, they should be on a co-operative basis, based on the production of the peasant proprietors and the smaller men, and run by the Government.

Mr. Speaker: I do not understand what this has to do with the Amendment before the House. The hon. Gentleman's argument might be all right on Second or Third Reading, but it does not appear to deal with the point which we are discussing—the conjunction or otherwise of the Ministry of Food with the Colonial Ministry.

Dr. Morgan: That is what I am dealing with. I say that this sort of scheme cannot be continued in all the Colonies. It might be done in big territories like Tanganyika, but this sort of scheme, which is presumably permanent legislation, in which there is a multiplicity of controls, cannot apply to all the different types of Colonies. That is why I am against a Clause which allows the Ministry of Food inside Colonial territories to have the power to run these schemes.
I want to give an assurance to the House that while I like these schemes of Colonial development in every direction, I do not think that schemes based on the idea of private enterprise under the aegis of the Government will necessarily be run well. I maintain with regard to the Colonies that the Colonial Office should be the main factor, and the whole basis of these schemes should be concerned with bringing in all the small proprietors in the country from the point of view of production, organisation and marketing. I maintain that these schemes should be based on co-operative ideas, co-operative trading and co-operative production. If that were done, this Bill, in my view, would be a much better Bill.
I could say a lot about the speech made by the hon. Member for Devonport, but perhaps as a colleague in association, I had better say nothing. It is better to settle these things privately than to discuss them before the House. I can assure the hon. Member that certain of his views on Colonial matters, in spite of his association with Colonial administration, could be im-

proved to a considerable extent if he went to the Colonies and resided there for ten years, or took into consultation those who know a little bit about certain parts of the British Empire.

Dr. Segal: I have tried with great difficulty to follow the thesis put forward by Members of the Opposition. Their case seems to be that our Colonial Empire must now and forever remain the choice preserve of one Government Department only; that any outside Ministry that wishes to follow a line of development in one of our Colonial territories is encroaching upon the choice preserve of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I would submit quite frankly that it should be the policy of the Government not only to stimulate interest on the part of one of their Departments, like the Ministry of Food, but that to develop our Colonial resources for the benefit of our Colonies, we should invite all Departments to take an active interest in our Colonies. The more the merrier.
Why should we still hold to the old ideas that our Colonial Empire is something quite apart from the mother country, and that every idea for the development of the Colonies must and can in the future only come out of the brain of the Colonial Secretary? Even if they try to justify their case, it has no actual foundation in fact. Many Government Departments have in the past taken a vital and close concern in Colonial matters. We have only to take the case of the Admiralty. It was vitally interested some few years ago in the project of the Singapore naval base, but the whole future of our defence system may tend to turn from the Middle East to our East African Colonies. Are we to exclude the Admiralty and the War Office from taking a direct interest in the development of our Colonial Empire?
Why should we attempt at this stage to exclude the Ministry of Food? During the course of the last few weeks we have read of the Paymaster-General making a tour of our Colonial territories as a sort of glorified commercial traveller, certainly in the interests of the mother country but also in the interests of the Colonies themselves. The object of this Bill to stimulate and increase interest in the welfare and development of our Colonial territories on the part of many other Government Departments is a new development


to be welcomed. I would refute utterly the suggestion made by hon. Members on the opposite side of the House that this is a dichotomy. It is quite the reverse. It is not a dichotomy but a symbiosis, an effort to get other Departments of the Government interested in the future of our Colonies.
During the fuel difficulties last year it was suggested that the miners should be asked to give up their five-day week and work longer hours. In future when the coal mines are better developed under the new system of nationalisation and when we get not only sufficient coal for our own needs, but also for export, why not give the miners back their five-day week or make it even a four-day week and let the Minister of Fuel and Power go out to the Colonies and develop the coal resources in some of them? Having not only stimulated the interest of the Ministry of Food in the Colonies let my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary encourage the Minister of Fuel and Power to go out to the colonial territories on some such vast new project as the development of the coal resources of Nigeria, or Northern and Southern Rhodesia. What is fundamentally wrong in that principle? Is it the aim of the Opposition this evening to put forward the thesis that the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Supply must remain for ever indifferent to what is happening in our Colonial Empire?
It is pathetic to see the once great Imperial party, not only great in numbers but great in its conception of Imperial policy, now shrunk to the miserable state of a small band of little Englanders. Cannot we develop a far greater conception of the significance of our colonial Empire and the whole future of our colonial peoples? Cannot we broaden the interests not only of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but every single Government Department so that in the future they will take a deep interest in the development of our colonial Empire? So far from this being a new development from which we should run away and of which we should fight shy, it is a development which we ought to do our utmost to encourage not only in the interests of the mother country, but also in the interests of the Colonies themselves. The colonial people get sick and tired of seeing the emissaries of the Colonial Office making their trips to colonial territory with some new idea or

because of a nationalisation scheme proposed by the Government. They want for a change to see the emissaries of the Ministry of Food or the Board of Trade or the Ministry of Supply. Why not? Let us forge all the more closely the links which bind our Colonies to the mother country. Let us see to it that it is not purely a one-way traffic which tends to be caught in a development bottleneck, but a two-way traffic developing broadly along vast new avenues of Imperial policy. So I would appeal to Members opposite to discard the ideas of the little Englander.

Sir Patrick Hannon: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting in the speech which he is presenting to the House that we should lose the services of the Minister of Food for a period? For His Majesty's administration in this country to lose such advice for a time would be a deplorable thing to which to look forward.

Dr. Segal: Provided he has during his absence made due provision for an ample supply of potatoes and certain other necessities upon which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) depends, the Minister is entitled to his holiday as much as any of us, and in what better way could he spend it than by a visit to some of our Colonies to see what he could do to assist their development, which as well as helping them would help our own country. Finally I would say, the conception in this Bill is a new conception which deserves every support from Members in all parts of the House, and not least from the once great Imperialist Party which sits now on the Opposition Benches.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Strachey: There is not a very great deal to say on this issue that has not been said upstairs and on the Floor of the House, so that I will deal very briefly with it. So far as I can see there appears to be three points. There is the issue of what is called dual control. We on this side of the House most earnestly deny that the provisions of this Measure have any element of dual control unless we call dual control the system under which today 99 per cent. of the economic activity in Colonial territories is actually undertaken, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) put it, by private enterprise—by the Union Africa Company in West Africa, to give one instance, by


Imperial Chemical Industries in some parts of East Africa and by a great many corporations in Malaya. They all work under the laws, rules, regulations and the provisions of the Colonial Governments of these respective territories and, through those. Colonial Governments, under the auspices of my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.
Hon. Members opposite can call it dual control if they like, but at any rate it is exactly the same system that we propose when we suggest that the Colonial Secretary can invite the Overseas Food Corporation to operate in any of the Colonial territories. It will come under precisely the same control by the local Colonial Governments as any other form of corporation which already operates there or which may start operating. We cannot see how such an arrangement is any more or any less dual control than that in which nine-tenths of the development of the Colonial territories operates today, and which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are so very proud of having promoted in the past. Therefore, we believe that the real point of the Amendment we have before us is to exclude from my right hon. Friend his right to invite the Overseas Food Corporation to come into any Colonial territory, and the reason why there is this discrimination is unquestionably because this is a public Corporation under public ownership. We object to this particular Overseas Food Corporation being excluded by Statute from operating in Colonial territory should the Colonial Secretary of the day in his wisdom invite it to do so. There is no more to be said on this issue than that.
Taking the second point, it is the psychological issue that somehow or other, if my right hon. Friend invites the Overseas Food Corporation to undertake some scheme in Colonial territories, that will bring upon him and the Government and the officials concerned obloquy on the part of agitators or other persons in Colonial territories, who will think that a wicked thing to do as compared with development undertaken by private corporations which are responsible only to their shareholders. We honestly do not believe that there is anything in this psychological question. What, in fact—I will not use the word "reconcile" for I do not think

they need reconciling—,will commend these schemes to the local inhabitants of the areas in which they operate is that it will not be a question of a large corporation operating or that a Ministry is ultimately responsible, but it will be a question of how they are run. Do they pay good wages? Do they give good conditions and are their medical services good? That is how every inhabitant of the area will judge these schemes. That is the real issue.

Colonel Dower: Can the Minister of Food assure us that in the course of the developments in this direction there will not be any unfairness in the competition that is bound to arise?

Mr. Strachey: The hon. and gallant Member is, by tacit implication, suggesting that these Corporations may create conditions too good for the liking of private firms.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is a completely unfair misrepresentation, such as he tried to get away with in the Committee upstairs. That is not the object of hon. Members on this side of the House. Examples have been given showing how, in shipping, railways, and a score of other ways, the Government have been giving themselves advantages in Tanganyika, which have resulted in the disruption of the existing economy.

Mr. Strachey: One hon. Member is now trying to explain what another hon. and gallant Member may have in mind. The point is not relevant to that which I was arguing. The only implication I could catch in the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member was that standards of wages and medical supervision might be raised too quickly by these Corporations.

Colonel Dower: The only point which occurred to me is that there are many genuine concerns which have weathered difficult times, and this House, and particularly the colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman, will not want to see those concerns driven out of their legitimate businesses. We want to instil a feeling of confidence in those concerns and to see that no unfair advantage will be taken of their position.

Mr. Strachey: That argument applies quite as much to the Colonial Development Corporation as to the Overseas Food


Corporation. I am reminded, moreover, that Imperial Chemical Industries, and any great corporation powerfully supported with large funds, might have that effect. That point is not germane to the argument on this Amendment, which is simply and solely whether the Colonial Secretary is or is not to have the right to invite the Overseas Food Corporation, as well as the Colonial Development Corporation, to operate in what I may, for short, call his territories.
A number of points have been raised as a result of misunderstanding of the very narrow issue which we are debating here. I was asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) whether it was possible for these schemes to be based upon peasant production. I have not the slightest doubt that they will be, and it is important that they should be. In the Tanganyika bush there could be no peasants until it had been cleared, because the tsetse fly made that impossible. In more habitable parts of the Colonies where there is a peasant population I imagine that these schemes must of necessity be based upon independent peasant production of one sort or another.

Finally, it is ironic that speaker after speaker from the Opposition side should suggest that they need, by moving these Amendments to put up a sort of iron fence against the intrusive Minister of Food going into Colonial territories. The irony is that the real effect of their Amendments is not to limit my powers in the slightest degree but to limit those of the Colonial Secretary. If the Amendments were carried, the Colonial Secretary would have no power of choice between the two Corporations. As the Bill now reads he has power to choose. He feels strongly that he likes to have two strings to his bow. That is a very simple and sensible desire. I think I am right in saying that in nine cases out of ten he will use the Colonial Development Corporation, but there is no doubt that he likes to have the option, in particular cases which cannot be seen in advance, to use the other Corporation. For that reason we ask the House to reject the Amendment.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 106; Noes, 243.

Division No. 55.]
AYES.
[...]7.56 p.m.


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)
Raikes, H. [...].


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.
Haughton, S. G.
Ramsay, Maj. S


Baldwin, A. E.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Rayner, Brig. R.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Herbert, Sir A. P
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Walls)
Hogg, Hon. Q.
Renton, D.


Bower, N.
Hollis, M. C.
Robinson, Roland


Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.
Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hurd, A.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Butcher, H. W.
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Sanderson, Sir F.


Challen, C.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Scott, Lord W.


Channon, H.
Jeffreys, General Sir G
Shephard, S. (Newark)


Clarke, Col. R. S.
Kerr, Sir J. Graham
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Smithers, Sir W.


Cole, T. L
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Snadden, W. M.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Spence, H. R.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O
Studholme, H. G.


Crowder, Capt. John E.
McCallum, Maj. D.
Sutcliffe, H.


Darling, Sir W. Y.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Teeing, William


De la Bère, R.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Thornton-Kemsley, [...]. N


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Marlowe, A. A. H
Touche, G. [...]


Dower, Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Turton, R H.


Drayson, G. B.
Medlicott, F.
Vane, W. M. F.


Drewe, C.
Mellor, Sir J.
Walker-Smith, D.


Eccles, D. M.
Molson, A. H. E.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wheatley, Col. M. J. (Dorset E.)


Erroll, F. J.
Mullan, Lt. C H
White, J. B. (Canterbury)


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Neill, W. F. (Belfast, N.)
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Foster, J. G. (Northwich)
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.
Nield, B. (Chester)
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Gage, C.
Odey, G. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Commander Agnew and


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A
Pel[...], Brig. C. H. M.
Lieut-Colonel Thorp


Grimston, R. V.
Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)



Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Prescott, Stanley





NOES


Acland, Sir R.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Gallacher, W.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Pearson, A.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Gibbins, J.
Perrins, W.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Gibson, C. W.
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Gilzean, A.
Proctor, W. T.


Attewell, H. C.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Austin, H. Lewis
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Rankin, J.


Awbery, S. S.
Granville, E. (Eye)
Rees-Williams, D. R.


Ayles, W. H.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Reeves, J.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Grenfell, D. R.
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Bacon, Miss A.
Grey, C. F.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Baird, J.
Grierson, E.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Balfour, A.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Barnes, Rt. Hon A. J.
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Rogers, G. H. R.


Barstow, P. G.
Hardy, E. A.
Royle, C.


Barton, C
Harrison, J.
Sargood, R.


Battley, J. R.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Segal, Dr. S.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Herbison, Miss M.
Sharp, Granville


Berry, H.
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)


Beswick, F.
Hicks, G.
Shawcross, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (St. Helens)


Binns, J.
Hobson, C R.
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Blenkinsop, A
Holman, P.
Simmons, C. J.


Blyton, W. R
Holmes, H. E (Hemsworth)
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.


Boardman, H
House, G.
Skinnard, F. W.


Bottomley, A G
Hubbard, T.
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Bowles, F. G (Nuneaton)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Braddock, T (Mitcham)
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)
Snow, J. W.


Bramall, E. A.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Stamford, W.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Steele, T.


Brown, George (Belper)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Stross, Dr. B.


Buchanan, Rt. Hon. G
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley)
Summerskill, Dr. Edith


Burden, T W.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Sylvester, G O.


Burke, W. A.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Symonds, A. L.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Jones, P Asterley (Hitchin)
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Chamberlain, R. A
Keenan, W.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Champion, A. J.
Key, C. W.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Chater, D.
King, E. M.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Kinley, J.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Cluse, W. S.
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton>


Cobb, F. A
Levy, B. W.
Thurtle, Ernest


Collick, P.
Lindgren, G. S.
Tiffany, S.


Collindridge, F.
Lyne, A. W.
Timmons, J.


Colman, Miss G. M.
McAdam, W.
Titterington, M. F.


Comyns, Dr. L.
McEntee, V. La T.
Tolley, L.


Cook, T. F.
McGhee, H. G.
Tomlinson, Rt Hon G.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Mack, J. D.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Cove, W. G.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Crawley, A.
Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)
Usborne, Henry


Daggar, G
McKinlay, A. S.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


Daines, P.
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Viant, S. P.


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Mallalieu, J. P. W
Wadsworth, G.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield)
Mann, Mrs. J
Walker, G. H.


Davies, Hadyn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Delargy, H. J.
Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Diamond, J.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George
Warbey, W. N.


Dobbie, W.
Medland, H. M
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Dodds, N. N.
Messer, F.
Wells, W T. (Walsall)


Donovan, T.
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Westwood, Rt. Hon. J.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Mikardo, Ian.
Wheatley, J. T. (Edinburgh, E.)


Dumpleton, C. W.
Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Dye, S.
Mitchison, G. R.
Wigg, George


Ede, Rt Hon. J. C.
Moody, A. S.
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.


Edelman, M.
Morley, R.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Mort, D. L.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Edwards, W. J (Whitechapel)
Moyle, A.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
Murray, J. D.
Willis, E.


Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Nally, W.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Naylor, T. E.
Wise, Major F. J.


Ewart, R.
Neal, H. (Claycross)
Woodburn, A.


Fairhu[...]st, F.
Oldfield, W. H
Woods, G. S.


Farthing, W. J.
Orbach, M.
Yates, V. F.


Fletcher, E. G. M (Islington, E.)
Page[...], R. T.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Foot, M. M.
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Zilliacus, K.


Forman, J. C.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Mr. Popplewell and Mr. Wilkins[...]


Freeman, Peter (Newport)
Pargiter, G. A.



Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 7.—(Local interests to be consulted.)

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): Mr. Strachey.

Sir W. Smiles: On a point of Order. Is it not proposed to call the Amendment in my name to page 5, line 3, after "territory," insert "and the prevention of soil erosion"?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to say that Mr. Speaker has had to rule the Amendment in the name of the hon. and gallant Member out of Order. It was not on the correct page in the Bill.

Sir W. Smiles: Further to that point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Would you allow me to move the same Amendment on Clause 8 on the same page, to insert after (b): "and the prevention of soil erosion" as a manuscript Amendment?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Quite obviously with the best will in the world I cannot agree to the course the hon. and gallant Member proposes without an opportunity to consider the Amendment which would, I think, still be out of Order. I am sorry, but I am afraid that I cannot accept it. Mr. Strachey.

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 5, line 8, at the end, to insert:
A committee appointed for the purposes of this Subsection shall, unless it appears to the Corporation to be impracticable, include persons having knowledge of the circumstances and requirements of the inhabitants of the territory obtained by their being or having been themselves inhabitants thereof or residents therein.
This is a very simple Amendment and one which we hope goes some way at any rate to meet points made quite strongly by some of my hon. Friends with the sympathy of the whole Committee upstairs. We are seeking to ensure that in their activities these Corporations are guided and aided to the very maximum degree possible by all the local knowledge at their disposal or which can be brought to their disposal. There is absolutely no difference about the purpose for which we do that. The Advisory Committees which are set up for this purpose should be as broad as we can make them and that is why we suggest the addition of these words.
This was the best form of words which the Parliamentary draftsmen could find to meet the useful suggestions made upstairs. We did not want to go as far in our form of words as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning) wishes to go, in her Amendment on the Order Paper to the Amendment we are discussing, namely, in line 1, to leave out from "shall," to "include," in line 2. She wanted to make it mandatory on the Corporations to include in these committees persons who were inhabitants of or who were native to the particular territory in which the scheme was operating. We thought that a little too narrow because, for example, the best man obtainable for an advisory committee on the groundnut scheme might not be a native of Tanganyika itself; he might have been born in Uganda or Kenya or one of the other East African territories. So we did not want to put down a residential qualification, like a county cricketer, but with my hon. Friend's purpose we are in the strongest sympathy, and we hope that this Amendment will go some way at any rate to meet her very legitimate point.

Mrs. Leah Manning: Of course the Minister's Amendment goes some way towards meeting the points raised by myself and other hon. Members in Committee, but it certainly does not go all the way. A great deal of time was spent on Second Reading and upstairs on the attitude which native labour will take towards these new Corporations. We have been led to expect from hon. Members on both sides of the House, who seem to be well acquainted with the psychology of native labour, that their minds will be filled with dark, primeval suspicions as to the effect of the Corporations and that, through agitation or otherwise, they will be led to believe that the Corporations and this work are entirely for the good of the housewives and users of this country and not at all for their benefit. I do not agree altogether with that point of view, but if it exists, then without any peradventure we should take every step possible to remove those suspicions from the minds of the native people.
I have not understood why those suspicions should only exist when it is a question of the Ministry of Food carrying out the work and why they should not exist when the Colonial Office do it.


However, I accept the word of hon. Members opposite, who understand the Colonial mind better than I do, that it might be the case and, therefore, I am anxious that we should not leave discretion in the hands of Ministers on this question in Clause 7, which says that committees shall be set up to make inquiries into the conditions in which these Corporations should operate. I object to that. I think the people who live in the areas should be placed on them. I do not understand what the Minister meant when he said that perhaps somebody living in Uganda would know something more about the groundnut scheme. I was under the impression that the committees which are to operate under the two safeguarding Clauses, 7 and 8, are intended to look after the welfare of the natives, not the groundnut scheme and how it should operate.
8.15 p.m.
The point is, who is to safeguard the welfare of these native people? If we are to overcome the suspicions which we understand are being engendered in their minds, if there is to be come opposition to the agitation which I understand will take place, we have to do everything we can, by propaganda in this country and by showing native labour in the Colonies, that we are prepared to let them do their own jobs as far as they possibly can. I do not deny that agitation. I think it is already taking place in this country, and that we do not have to go to Africa to find that people of ill will are already saying that the work of the Corporation under this Bill is not at all for the benefit of the Colonies, but only for the benefit of this country.
While I do not want to send the Cabinet out, as an hon. Friend behind me wanted to do, letting the second eleven carry on—although I suppose they would do the job very well—I feel we should let the native labour administer its own affairs as far as possible in regard to education, welfare and health, and that there should be committees which give the fullest possible advice to the Corporation and to the Colonial Office on these questions. Therefore, although I am glad the Minister has gone as far as he has, I am not altogether satisfied about his discretionary powers. I think the committees should be set up under Clause 7 and, under Clause 8, the

people who live in the areas should be there to protect the interests of the native labour and to give all necessary advice.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 8.—(Interests of employees to be consulted.)

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 5, line 14, to leave out from "all," to end of line 15, and to insert:
practicable steps to secure.
This Amendment, and the next Amendment, namely, to leave out lines 26 to 28, and to insert:

"(a) with persons or bodies appearing to them to represent or to have qualifications to speak on behalf of substantial numbers of the employees affected;
(b) where the matter in question arises in connection with the carrying on of activities in a Colonial territory, with the Government of the territory."

are for similar purposes. They are to meet valuable points made upstairs which we promised to try to incorporate. The first is a slight, but useful strengthening of the beginning of Clause 8 which enjoins the Corporation to take all practicable steps to secure the objects set out in paragraphs (a) and (b) which are thought to be vital. The second is an addition to the last two lines of Clause 8 and meets a valuable point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Dr. Segal). It gives a wider choice in the representation of native labour which, as was pointed out, might not necessarily be best represented by a so-called trades union organisation and, in more primitive conditions, the tribal organisation might be called upon.
I think they are useful Amendments, but I would say to my hon. Friends that, while it is right and proper for us to try to make these two safeguarding Clauses as effective as we can, the real safeguards for the native populations who work on these schemes—and for that matter the British personnel who work on them, who are very important—will be in the way the schemes are worked, in the intentions of the great public Corporations which manage them, and in the fact that those Corporations will be exposed to public criticism and control from this House and the whole range of public opinion in this country. I have not' the faintest doubt that these Corporations must, in their own interests, set the


highest standards in these respects, and although the Corporation does not exist yet in East Africa, the managing agency, to its great credit, has already set a high standard in these matters. I feel that although the exact words we incorporate in the Bill are important, they are of rather secondary importance compared with what is actually done in the field.

Mr. Harry Wallace: I welcome these Amendments, because I think them important. I recognise that in this field there must be some discretion left to the Minister. It is the duty of every Member of this House to pay more attention to what is happening in Africa and what will happen when these Corporations are set up. A heavy duty rests on some of my colleagues, and much will depend on the spirit in which this Measure is administered. I attach very great importance to the publication of the report, and I hope this House will see that the report is thoroughly discussed, so that we may perform our duty.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 5, leave out lines 26 to 28, and insert:

" (a) with persons or bodies appearing to them to represent, or to have qualifications to speak on behalf of substantial numbers of the employees affected;
(b) where the matter in question arises in connection with the carrying on of activities in a colonial territory, with the Government of the territory."—[Mr. Strachey.]

CLAUSE 9.—(Powers of the responsible Minister.)

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in line 35, to leave out "make an annual," and to insert:
as soon as possible after the end of each financial year of the Corporation make a full.
This Amendment is designed to make good an undertaking I gave the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) to use some such words as:
the annual report shall be full and prompt.
The words proposed in the Amendment are thought by the Parliamentary counsel to be the most suitable, and I hope they meet the point raised by the right hon. Member for West Bristol.

Mr. Stanley: We on this side of the House are extremely obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for this Amendment. In Committee, he made it clear that his intentions in regard to this matter were the

same as our desires, and I think the words now chosen are better not only than those in the original Bill but, in order to carry out our intentions, than the words we put down.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In line 37, leave out "the preceding" and insert "that."—[Mr. Strachey.]

CLAUSE 16.—(Accounts and Audit.)

Mr. Diamond: I beg to move, in page 8, line 42, at the end to insert:
Provided that no person shall be qualified to be so appointed unless he is a member of one or more of the following bodies:

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales;
The Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors;
The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh;
The Institute of Accountants and Actuaries in Glasgow;
The Society of Accountants in Aberdeen;
The Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants, Limited."
I must first declare my interest by pointing out that I happen to be a very undistinguished member of this distinguished profession. In Clause 16 (3) the Bill provides:
The accounts of the Corporation shall be audited by auditors to be appointed annually by the responsible Minister.
The purpose of this Amendment is to make it clear that those called upon to do the audits shall be well qualified to accept that appointment. The words used in the Amendment follow a long list of precedents in public and private Acts. They go back at least to 1930 in regard to public Acts. In view of the interest which I gather attaches to this unimportant Amendment, it might be helpful if I refer to the Acts where these identical qualifications are used. They are the Municipal Corporations (Audit) Act, 1932, the Local Government Act, 1933, the Betting and Lotteries Act, 1934, the Workmen's Compensation (Coal Mines) Act, 1934, the Herring Industry Act, 1935, the Housing Act, 1935, the Housing Act 1936, an Act entitled the General Cemetery Act, 1937, and, to come to more modern times the Electricity Act of 1947.
Having regard to that formidable list of precedents, I hope I shall be excused if I say in regard to any bodies which happen to be omitted from the list that it seems reasonable that we should adopt care and


caution in varying the list so as to include perhaps one body, and, by doing so seem to be excluding certain other bodies who might feel equally entitled to be included. The difficulty about any list is not those who are included, but those who are left out. I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I point out that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland has 10 members practising in this country, and when this matter was considered before no fewer than 11 hon. Members supported an Amendment on their behalf. I hope I shall not be misunderstood in suggesting that they and other institutes, not in the list, if they desire to be included, should go through the normal procedure, which seemed fit to this House in past years, of having their claims examined by a Select Committee.
I hope that the general purpose of my Amendment will not displease the House, and that the words I have used in regard to the Irish Institute will not displease them. It is perhaps worth while mentioning that the list has remained completely unchanged for more than 50 years and any change in it would be bound to lead to a number of similar applications. Without full inquiry it would be impossible to distinguish between the merits of the various claimants. It is anticipated that perhaps in the lifetime of this Parliament a Public Accountants Bill may be brought forward dealing with the status of members of the profession generally. That would be an appropriate occasion for dealing with any difficulties which might arise as between different bodies. But this Amendment affects only two audits, and it seems to me this is not an occasion to undertake a large-scale inquiry into inclusion of other bodies, which have not seen fit to request inclusion.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I beg to second the Amendment.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Rees-Williams: We did not, in the first place, include any list of accountants in the Bill, but during the Committee stage I said that we would consider the matter on Report. We have done so, and we feel, in view of the numerous precedents that have been quoted to us today by my hon. Friend, that there would be no objection to the

inclusion of these bodies in the Bill. I have therefore much pleasure, on behalf of the Government, in accepting the Amendment.

Mr. Gage: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 6, at the end, to insert "Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland."
I should make it clear that I and those of my hon. Friends who support me do not quarrel with the original wording of the Clause, because I feel that no responsible Minister of the Crown would appoint to such an important task one who was unqualified or perhaps improperly qualified; but an Amendment has been moved by the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Diamond) which makes one serious mistake, in that it omits the Irish Institute. Perhaps I should tell the House something about the Irish Institute of Chartered Accountants. In the first place, it holds its position by virtue of a Charter from Queen Victoria enrolled in 1888. That specifically gave to the Irish Institute equal rights, powers, privileges and authority with the English, Welsh and Scottish Institutes. It is these powers and privileges which the hon. Member for Blackley, by his Amendment, now apparently seeks to restrict.
It is not disputed, and I notice that the hon. Member for Blackley did not attempt to dispute, that the members of the Irish Institute stand at least equal to, if not higher than their English and Welsh colleagues in professional ability and integrity. The other point I would make is that the Irish Institute embraces the whole of Ireland; it always has done and still does. When Ireland was divided, the profession, who took no part in politics, but whose sole concern was to elevate and keep elevated the standard of their profession, did not divide, as did many other professions. Consequently the original Amendment would debar both the chartered accountant from Down as well as the chartered accountant from Donegal. It would keep out the chartered accountants of Antrim and Armagh equally with the chartered accountants of Cork and Kerry, because over there they all belong to one profession on both sides of the border.
It seems to me entirely wrong that where reciprocal rights are granted in Ireland to members of the English and


Welsh institutes, those rights should be denied them or a restriction placed upon them in this country. The hon. Member for Blackley said there were only ten members practising here. My information is that that figure is entirely incorrect. There are very many more than that. But that is not the point, because if one member, otherwise properly qualified was a person whom the Minister might desire to elect, it would be utterly wrong that that member should be debarred simply because he was a member of the Irish Institute and not the English or Welsh Institute.
Those are the circumstances of the Irish Institute, and I say that it would be completely wrong for the Government to accept the original Amendment and to reject the Amendment to that Amendment which I am moving, because that would be discrimination in its basest form. It would be discrimination which, in my submission, would be wholly unjustified. Indeed, I am amazed at my own moderation in putting the Irish Institute at the bottom of the list instead of at the top where, so far as I am concerned, and many of the hon. Gentlemen on both sides of this House are concerned, they should be. We may be divided internally in matters which we look upon as private, but when the whole of our country is affected, and the whole of one of our most honoured professions is discriminated against, then I think we can draw support from all quarters of the House. I do ask the House to bear in mind the rights of these people and to accept my Amendment to the original Amendment.

Major Haughton: I beg to second the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.
The mover of the proposed Amendment considers it right that in this Bill there should be an indication of the qualifying bodies or institutions from which the auditors should be drawn. I entirely agree with him. The exact standing of auditors called upon to deal with such very important business should be known. The standing of the Institute in Ireland is as high all over the world as any of the others which he has named. Irishmen are always accused of revelling in past history, but I take considerable pride tonight in going back over the history of this Institute of Accountants in Ireland to

the year 1888. While I am not going to weary the House with a long recitation of the facts which have marked the joint action with the English, Scottish and Welsh accountancy bodies, I am going to cite two cases. In 1932, when the South African Society's Chartered Accountants proposed to make alteration in their bylaws, the Irish Institute was in joint action with the English, Scottish and Welsh bodies in opposition to that Measure. Again, in 1935, action was taken with the English Institute and the Scottish societies in connection with the India Bill. Each and every one of those pages in accountancy history marked one fact—that the Irish Institute was of equal standing with its two comrade bodies on this side of the channel.
It may be thought that a very great deal of fuss is being made by some of us on this side of the House about what may be considered to be rather an unimportant matter, but I think it should be understood that an accountant who is going to practise in different parts of the world has, by examination, and by the merit of passing his examinations, the right to put the letters "A.C.A." or "F.C.A." after his name. That is a very important matter. I think that the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Diamond) said that there were 10 members. It would be quite salutary to give him the exact number on 31st December, 1946. At that date the disposition of accountants who are members of the Irish Institute showed that in Great Britain there were 63; in Northern Ireland, 225; in Southern Ireland, 267; abroad, 27; and serving with the Forces, 24. That is a total of 606. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept those figures as being correct.

Mr. Diamond: I am in a little difficulty. The figure of 10 was given to me by the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Of course, what the Institute of Chartered Accountants says must be right.

Major Haughton: I am quoting precise figures which I have received from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. I do not propose to withdraw any one of those figures. At present 63 members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland are practising in Great Britain and not 10. The closest possible relationship and comradeship has existed between these bodies. That is


most desirable. I cannot understand why there should have been what seems to be the most deliberate attempt to discriminate against the Irish Institute which is a very honourable body. I am reluctant to pursue that topic, but I repeat that there has been a very deliberate attempt to discriminate. This Institute holds its head high. For many years it has worked in the closest harmony with the other bodies. Just as I have said that there are 63 Irish chartered accountants practising in Great Britain, so I am glad to say there are many members of the English and Scottish Institutes practising in different parts of Ireland. That is a most desirable thing.

Mr. Rees-Williams: We had not made up our minds on this matter. We preferred to hear the case put to the House by the hon. Gentlemen whose names are on the Order Paper. I must say that, having listened to their remarks—and my hon. Friends on the Front Bench agree—I consider that the hon. Members for South Belfast (Mr. Gage) and Antrim (Major Haughton) have made a good case. They put forward a well-reasoned convincing case. In the circumstances we feel that we must accept the Amendment to the Amendment. We do not hold ourselves out as being able to discriminate between one body of accountants rather than another, but in view of the many arguments they have put forward we cannot but think that there is no case to discriminate against this distinguished body. It is a pleasure to meet our friends the Irish on these matters, particularly when they are all of one mind, and when they seem to have the support of a Welshman and a Scot in their submission.

Sir P. Hannon: May I say how grateful I am to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies for the concession he has made? It would be very unfortunate from the point of view of public opinion in Ireland, both North and South, that there should be what might be regarded as discrimination against public bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. I am particularly grateful that the speeches of my hon. Friends have convinced the Minister of the rectitude of the course which we invited him to pursue. He has done a very charming service this evening to

Irish public opinion. This Institute has reached just as high a level as any other institution in the country. As an old Member of this House who is still profoundly interested in the welfare of my own countrymen, I am glad that this position has made its appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary, and I congratulate both the Minister of Food and the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the concession which they have given.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. William Teeling: Might I add a further word to what my hon. Friend has just said, and from another Irishman's point of view? I would like to thank the Government for having accepted this request. Quite frankly, there are a large number of Irish people, both in the North and the South, who are deeply interested in the whole development of the Colonial question and in the future of all the Colonies, and who would feel very strongly that, if the Irish Institute had been deliberately left out in this case, it would have been almost a slur on their own position, since many of them are actively taking part in the development of the Colonies. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Great Britain and other bodies are now trying to come together to form a united whole, and they have been worried over the whole of this question whether the North and South of Ireland would come in under the Irish Institute and be united with them. I think this action by the Government will be further proof of the necessity for the Irish Institute being brought in on any matter with which the other bodies in Great Britain are concerned. I would like to say how grateful those of us who are interested in this matter feel to the Government for this concession.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

SCHEDULE.—(Provisions relating to the constitution, etc., of each of the Cor- porations.)

Mr. Strachey: I beg to move, in page 12, line 7, after "death," to insert "injury."
This is a very obviously self-explanatory Amendment, since the word "injury" in line 7 should be included so that the Corporation might be empowered


to pay pensions, gratuities and the like benefits, not only in case of death or retirement, but also in cases of injuries, which, under the conditions in which this Corporation will operate, might well occur to its employees.

Amendment agreed to.

8.49 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
It is not my wish to detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I feel that I should make a few general remarks in regard to the Bill as it has now emerged from the Report stage. I recognise that the Bill has the general support of all sections of the House, and also that it has been acclaimed outside the House with a great deal of enthusiasm, but, at the same time, I appreciate that there are a number of doubts in regard to certain parts of the Bill. One of these doubts has been put in the Debate this afternoon. It is the doubt whether Colonial opinion is quite satisfied that the Bill will not be used for the purposes of exploitation; the doubt whether the needs of Great Britain and Western Europe will not dominate over the essential development requirements of the Colonial peoples themselves.
I would like to assert, with all the emphasis I can, that this Bill is as much designed for the purpose of meeting the needs of the world as it is for meeting the special needs of the Colonial peoples. By that, I mean that it is imperative today, if the Colonial peoples are to go forward in attaining that standard of living, in reaching a higher stage of social development, and in enjoying the social services they demand, that their economic resources should be fully developed. This Bill will give some assistance in making Colonial economies more stable, in encouraging enterprise and in increasing the number of economic activities possible in the territories. At the same time, the Bill will minister to the needs of Europe, and of our own country in particular. I think that, arising out of it, there will be a closer integration of economic interests because of the mutual benefit which the operation of this Bill will bring.
I have no apprehension that, because the Bill provides for an Overseas Food Corporation, we shall be diverted, as a

nation, from our main purpose of building up Colonial standards. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, answerable to Parliament, will still carry a general responsibility in regard to the whole of the economic development of the territories under his immediate control. It will be his duty and his responsibility to see that, whether it is the Colonial Development Corporation or the Overseas Food Corporation which is functioning in these territories, reasonable and proper standards are maintained, and that their activities fit in with the general economic plan of development of the territory concerned. It will be his special responsibility to see that the Corporation only functions with the understanding and consent of the local government and of the people involved.
This Bill, I think, marks a further big step forward in our conception of Colonial development. The Colonial Development and Welfare Acts of 1940 and 1945 were of great importance because of the planning which was involved under them in respect to social and economic development. As a result, under the programmes for the next 10 years which have been prepared, a tremendous amount of economic development becomes possible which will provide their economic activities with a framework which those economic activities can successfully proceed. That is to say, we are able, by grants from the Imperial Funds, to push on with road construction, railways, water conservation, soil conservation, irrigation works, power stations, and all those other essential utilities on which the rest of the economic activities of the territories depend. We now have the opportunity of carrying economic development a stage beyond that, in so far as we are able to encourage enterprise, of both a private and public character, in order to increase the economic wealth and to exploit the economic resources for the general development of these territories.
It is sometimes little recognised that so far, in Colonial development only a comparatively small sum of money has been invested for the purposes of exploiting the territorial resources. The capital has gone to some extent on mineral development, and chiefly on railway development, but in regard to the normal production activities the amount of capital expenditure has been comparatively


small. Indeed, a great deal of investment was switched away from Africa and our other Colonies for use in South America and the American Continent. To that extent, we have not given to the development of these territories the attention which we should have given in days gone by. There are enormous difficulties in the way of development. We ought not to delude ourselves that results can flow quickly when these tremendous difficulties have to be overcome before widespread development becomes possible. Vast arid areas, great bush areas with tsetse fly, problems of irrigation and water supply, opening out the country, large areas where there is a dearth of labour—these are considerable problems which have to be overcome if development is to go forward.
I believe that by the creation of these two Corporations enormous assistance can be given to enterprise. By collaboration with existing enterprise, by the creation of new enterprises of a public character, by association with peasant production and with co-operative groups, and in a thousand ways, enterprise which previously was impossible can now be launched and, I hope, can go forward for the betterment of those territories. I said a moment ago that results are not likely to be quick. At the moment we are up against enormous difficulties because of the shortage of the essential materials on which a great deal of development depends. The absence of steel, machinery and technicians are some of the difficulties which we have to overcome. But I believe that the launching of this big work by means of these two Corporations will make a very substantial addition to the wealth of our Colonies and to the happiness of the peoples involved, and we can prove ourselves more worthy of the Empire under our control.
I think it would probably be of interest to the House if I stated the composition of the Colonial Development Corporation, and indicated how it will proceed with its work. The appointments so far made are, of course, designate in anticipation of the passing of this Measure. As the House is aware, we have invited Lord Trefgarne to be Chairman of the Corporation, and perhaps I should inform the House that his salary will be £5,000 a year. As the House also knows, the Deputy-Chairman will be

Sir Frank Stockdale, whose reputation is very well known and widely recognised not only here, but in the Colonial Empire generally. As a full time Deputy-Chairman, his salary will be £3,000 a year. The Board will be a part-time Board and the remuneration of each of the members will be £500 per year. The persons who have been invited to serve are—

Mr. Stanley: And accepted?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, and accepted. They are Mr. Tansley, formerly marketing director of the West African Produce Control Board; Sir Miles Thomas, chairman of the Development and Co-ordinating committee of Southern Rhodesia, until recently vice-chairman of Morris Motors Limited; Mr. H. N. Hume, chairman and managing director of Charterhouse Investment Trusts Limited; Mr. H. M. Gibson, who is a director of the C.W.S.; Sir Charles Darwin, director of the National Physical Laboratory; Mr. R. E. Brook, director of the Bank of England; Mr. J. Rosa, a banker who saw war service in the Treasury and the Colonial Office and was on the Commission of the East African groundnut scheme.
There are one or two vacancies which have not yet been filled, but we have tried to secure a widely experienced Board and I think it will satisfy the test which is laid down in the Bill which the House has been considering this afternoon. I hope the House will give the Bill its Third Reading with some enthusiasm, because from it we expect great things in the Colonies. Anyway, we shall drive ahead with our development plans and I am quite certain not only will our own country profit from the working of the Bill, but also enormous social and economic benefits will come to the Colonial peoples themselves.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Stanley: First of all, may I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the courtesy with which he has announced to the House the composition of the Board of the Colonial Development Corporation, and also its functional division. I congratulate him very much on deciding on this form of managerial board. I think it is far better to have a whole-time chairman and deputy chairman, to have part-time people for the board on whom


one can call for specialist knowledge when it is wanted and from whom one can get general information on some big step, and then to have the functional direction, in the hands of an executive under the chairman of the board. I am sure that, for this type of organisation in particular, that gives an ideal set-up.
With regard to the personnel, I think we can say at once that we find in this list of names a number of highly respected people of exactly the type of experience which would seem desirable for a Corporation of this kind. Tribute has been paid by more than one speaker to the services of Sir Frank Stockdale, and truly they have been pre-eminent—and not only in the field of agriculture, because as the right hon. Gentleman knows, he has also rendered extremely good service in a wider sphere in the West Indies Development administration. Without being at all invidious to other names, with which I personally have no intimate acquaintance, I would like to refer to the name of Mr. Tansley because I had experience at the Colonial Office during the war of the great service he did with the West African Board, and I can think of no one who is likely to be able to give sounder advice and riper knowledge on these subjects than Mr. Tansley. I noted that the right hon. Gentleman said that there were still some vacancies. A cursory glance at the list, without knowing all the names intimately, would suggest that it might be wise to use some of these vacancies in strengthening the side of actual Colonial experience. There is a wide range of interest covered here which deserves to be and should be covered, and I should have thought that some more vacancies might be used to strengthen the Colonial side.
Having thanked the right hon. Gentleman for that part of his announcement, let me say that I have little to add to and nothing to subtract from what he said about the Bill itself. It happened as a mechanical result of our being on the Report stage that, so far, today we have been discussing only points on which we differ, but, of course, those points on which we differ are only a very small part of the Bill itself on which all of us agree. We put forward with sincerity the views we hold about the duplicated working of these two Corporations. They have been rejected by the House, but that does not

in the least diminish our desire and hope that the experiment embodied in this Bill will prove a success which will redound not only to the credit but also to the rosperity of this country and of the Colonial Empire.
I accept entirely the assertion made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that he approached this Bill, and the operations under the Bill, in no selfish desire merely to benefit the people of this country, but to bring benefits to the Colonial Empire, to this country—and why not to this country—and to the world at large. I am not in any way flattering the right hon. Gentleman when I say that, whatever differences we may have had in the past, and, no doubt, will have in the future, he has gained a reputation for sympathy with the Colonies and with Colonial objectives that make an assertion of that kind, coming from him, of particular value.
As I see it, the position is this: These new Corporations are a valuable method to which we assent and to which we wish well. They are different in their working from other methods which already exist, but with the Colonial Welfare Development Act and with private enterprise, these Corporations make a third method of arriving at real economic development of the Colonial territories. I have been relieved not only by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman tonight but by some very wise words from the Minister of Food during the Committee stage. It seems to me that the Government are determined that all three of these partners shall be allowed to play their proper and particular part, and that there is room inside the Colonial territories for all three, because I think that there will be found particular things at which each one of the three will prove to be the better. There are certain kinds of development which are clearly best done by the Colonial Governments themselves with the help of the Colonial Welfare and Development side—the development of communications, water supplies and things of that kind.
There are certain larger scale operations which probably are best done by the Corporations; and I say at once that I do not think that under present conditions it would have been possible for private enterprise to have tackled the ground-nut scheme. On the other hand, there are


a number of cases where private enterprise working, as it always must work now, under the laws of the Colonial territories, will be found the best method of developing the economies of those territories. Therefore, we look forward to a prosperous co-operation between these three partners, the Colonial Governments, the Corporations and private enterprise, in the hope that between them they will lead to a real and substantial development of Colonial economics.
In conclusion, I want to say to the right hon. Gentleman how wise I thought he was to warn people about extravagant hopes of quick results from these Corporations. He was wise to point out the difficulties that still exist. This is a period entirely unlike the world deflation before the war. We must realise that any capital equipment that we use under a new Bill of this kind is merely capital equipment which we are taking away from other projects which other Ministries are conceiving, or which other legislation gives power to carry through. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman was wise to point out that we must make it plain that this is not some sudden new addition to the resources on which we can call, but an attempt in some cases to use to better advantage the capital equipment upon which we can call.
I am not depressed myself by the idea that development under these schemes will not be too rapid or too dramatic. I am perfectly certain the right hon. Gentleman will not fall into the error of thinking that nothing is any good unless it can make a big splash; that nothing will really help Colonial economics unless it is big enough, novel enough, and progressive enough—so-called—to hit the headlines in the newspapers. I believe that view to be a profound mistake. The right hon. Gentleman will find that the most immediate and, indeed, lasting benefits from these schemes and these Corporations will lie in the quite small ways in which he can develop and assist already existing or nascent industries and productions. I am sure that is his intention, and from the composition of the board we can rest assured that they will not be people looking only for dramatic but possibly extremely expensive schemes, but people looking for every opportunity to develop, even in the smallest way, the Colony upon which some territory depends. So we on this

side of the House, in saying goodbye to the Bill at this stage, wish to both Corporations the greatest success in their work, believing that from their success will come great advantage, both to this country and, above all, to the Colonial Empire.

9.13 p.m.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Strachey): I have only one or two words to add to our Debate before we part with this Bill. I wish to thank the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) for the remarks he has just made, which have been most helpful in the launching of what is a national series of enterprises. I should like to add one thing to the statement of my right hon. Friend in regard to personnel, and that is, I am very glad to be able to tell the House that Sir Frank Stock-dale, whose great reputation has been referred to on both sides of the House, will be a member not only of the Colonial Development Corporation but of the Overseas Food Corporation. He is the interlocking point of the interlocking directorates, just as Mr. Rosa from the Overseas Food Corporation interlocks with the Colonial Development Corporation as has just been announced.
I know that everybody in the House recognises fully that in passing this Bill, as we shall do in a very few moments, we are doing very little unless we make possible that mobilisation of resources of which the right hon. Member for West Bristol has just spoken. They are, in the economist's phrase, very scarce resources indeed. That is an additional reason why we must mobilise them with the utmost care. We agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we have now, and shall have when this Bill is on the Statute Book, a triple instrument for Colonial and overseas development—the method of the Colonial government acting directly, the method of private enterprise, and now the method of Government Corporations, which has become for many years an established part of our national life in this country, and which we believe, although it is a daring new departure, can now play a great part in overseas development.
We certainly do not want to score any party points about which is the best of these forms of development. On both sides of the House we have tried to avoid that in our discussions, keen as they have been on particular provisions of this


Measure. Our national position is really too grave to warrant any indulgence in our particular opinions on the methods of overseas development. I should like to end this discussion by striking this note, that by one means or another, by hook or by crook, the development of primary production of all sorts, in the Colonial areas, Colonial territories and dependent areas in the Commonwealth, as well as generally throughout the world, in far more abundant quantities than exist today is, it is hardly too much to say, a life and death matter for the economy of this country.
We know that this Bill cannot, with the resources which we can spare for this particular purpose, do more than make a contribution to that vitally important end, which for this country and for other highly developed industrial countries in the world is of such tremendous importance. It is a contribution which we can make, and we believe that it may set an example to other countries with resources which might join in one form or another with us in the development to the greatest possible extent of primary production throughout the world. That is really the great world need today, and in establishing that new instrument for that purpose, we feel that we are serving well the cause not only of this country, but of all the consumers and producers throughout the world.

9.19 p.m.

Mr. Baldwin: On the seven o'clock news of the B.B.C., the Business of this House was given as the Princess Elizabeth's and Duke of Edinburgh's Annuities Bill. No mention was made of the Overseas Resources Development Bill. I suggest to the B.B.C. that this Bill should at least have taken an equal place in that announcement with the Annuities Bill, because I look upon it as the most important piece of legislation which will be placed on the Statute Book this Session. I hope that this Bill means that it is a forerunner of other development schemes. I shall be getting out of Order if I suggest developments in industry, as well as developments in food. I hope that when Sir Miles Thomas and the experts now investigating the possibilities of industrial development in Africa arrive back and make their report, we shall have placed before us an industrial development scheme. We must recognise that if the African native has to

depend on what he can reap from food production, his standard of life must necessarily be low.
Therefore, I want to see linked up with this Bill a Bill for the development of industry as well. In these Debates party politics have largely been absent, and I hope for the sake of the Empire, as well as this country, that they always will. But I did not like the statement which the Under-Secretary made on the Second Reading, when he gibed at the Conservative Party in saying that the Government were up against difficulties because of the years which the locusts had eaten. I did not think that that was fair, because it must be recognised that no matter what Government were in power in the past this country decided that it would purchase supplies from whatever source they could be obtained, and as cheaply as possible. Many of the schemes now contemplated were not carried out. For instance, it would have been suicidal for any Government or private company to have started a groundnut scheme before the war, when there was overproduction of groundnuts.
This Bill has been accepted by all parties in this House, and although I do not wish to add much to what has been said about the interests of the Ministry of Food in connection with this Bill I feel that the day will come when the interests of that Department, as a supplier of food, must clash with their interests as a primary producer. I believe that too much has been expected from the groundnut scheme. I have the feeling that we are rather putting the cart before the horse. I should have liked to see development on two entirely different lines before the groundnut scheme was started—development of transport, such as railways and roads, and of labour. We must remember that even today there are groundnuts in West Africa that cannot be moved owing to lack of transport, yet we are launching out on a great scheme of further production before we have thoroughly gone into this question of transport. In the development schemes that come along I believe that money would be better employed on railway and road transport of the African Colonial Empire rather than on primary production. This can be better done by private enterprise, which can deal with this matter much better than a public corporation.
I also believe that labour is one of the problems that has never been properly faced by the originators of this scheme. It is thought that the African native is a source of cheap labour. I have found that the African native is some of the dearest labour I have ever seen at work. If he gets a task which will employ him for two and a half or three hours he considers that is sufficient, and will do no more work. We must give the native primary education, better food, and more incentives. If production is started before labour supply is in the right position the difficulties will be accentuated. The sisal industry lost one million tons of sisal last year, because the necessary labour was not available. They are drawing labour from as far away as a thousand miles. That does not sound a practical proposition. Some steps should be taken to get the native labourers out of their reserves on to the job. They should have good villages with their own schools and hospitals, and they should be fed better and given a higher standard of living, so that they are able to do the work. Before any steps to increase production are taken, these provisions must be made.
In the development schemes being put forward there should be provision for cooperation between the Minister of Defence and the Colonial Secretary. The development of transport systems in Africa can be of immense importance not only to food production, but also to industrial developments and from the military point of view. Development should he undertaken from the long term and not the short term point of view.
The Secretary of State mentioned that in prewar days primary production and food production had not been developed in the Empire to the extent it should have been. With that I agree. This country has always decided to buy food in the cheapest markets of the world. I am glad the Minister of Food is now interested in this scheme, because it seems to me that if and when the food of the world enters the competitive market again, first place will be given here to the home producer, second to the Empire producer, the rest of the world coming in at the tail end. For instance, the Minister of Food on Second Reading mentioned the development of the cattle industry and the sisal industry of Australia. With what he said I entirely agree. I do not agree that he

should produce that beef, but he should give a pledge to the Australian pastoralist that when he has produced food he should find a market for it in this country.
That co-operation is bound up with something of tremendous importance both to this country and to Australia. Not many months ago the Minister of Immigration in Australia, the Hon. A. Calwell, spoke to an all-party meeting at this House, and I should like to quote what he said:
In the past my party has been anti-immigration. The shock of war has made us realise that we have got to populate Australia or perish.
The population of Australia is about 7,500,000. Mr. Calwell said that they wanted to build up the population of Australia to 20 million. The way to build up the Australian population to 20 million is to encourage production in that Continent, and then the population will gradually grow.
I am one who feels that if we are to survive as an Empire—if we in these islands are to survive as a nation—we must spread our population and spread our defences. I am not one of those who want to see emigration from this country restricted. I think we are too thick on the ground, and I am all for emigration of the population into the vast open spaces of the Empire. Thus we can build up those countries; and that can be of immense value to the world, and a safeguard of future peace.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. Rankin: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) but I feel I must dissociate myself from a good deal of what he said. He has offered some criticism of African wages. I want to remind him that it has been pointed out with truth that for every £12 of wealth created in Africa in the past we took out £11 and left £1. A great deal of the psychological difficulty about which we have heard has its origin in the savage maltreatment which was meted out to the Africans in days gone by. That is the reason why I welcome the Bill before us tonight. I hope it terminates a black page in our dealings with the African peoples. It is consoling to note that the Bill has been received with general agreement by Members in all parts of the House, but


that should not detract from our recognition of the fact that it has been very ably piloted through to this stage by my right hon. Friends the Minister of Food and the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
I should like to centre my remarks round a point made by the Colonial Secretary to-night. He said that this Bill aimed to meet world needs and the needs of the Colonial people. That will create a feeling of great confidence amongst the Colonial peoples in regard to the purposes of the Bill. However, if that is to materialise we have got to get the co-operation of the African in the operation of the schemes under this Bill. That is absolutely essential to the success of the Measure, because we have to realise that in this Bill the African is giving up something which he has dreamed about for a very long while and which a great many of the primary producing countries have dreamed about for years, namely, industrialisation. The African is sacrificing that in order that we may get food, timber and raw materials.
If that ideal is to be realised we must have his co-operation and if we are to have that co-operation the African must be trained to take his place in due course in the administration of the Colonial Development Corporation. We have to remember that Africa is his. Its resources are his, and if this Bill is to fulfil the desires of the Colonial Secretary, it can only do so if the African is allowed in the final outcome to administer this Colonial Development Corporation. In the end we must pass the control and organisation of this scheme into African hands, if it is to operate with success. It would be a splendid contribution if either of my right hon. Friends were able to say, before the Bill finally leaves the House, that, in the end, this is the aim and object we have before us.

9.36 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I also welcome the Bill. It is extremely necessary today. Finance is different in 48 from what it was in 1938. It would now be impossible for private enterprise unaided to develop all these vast territories that still remain. Out of every £1 made by companies that operate in Africa and in our territories overseas 12s. has to be paid by them to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That

does not make for economy, and it certainly does not give those companies opportunities such as they had in the past of putting money away to develop the countries in which they operate. It is a matter for congratulation that it is not too years since Livingstone died, and not 100 years since he saw African slaves shackled together and driven by Arabs down to the coast, while whole areas of land were depopulated and whole villages laid waste. I can only hope that, as a result of the Bill, Africa will develop as quickly in the next 100 years as it has done in the last.
There are two things that I do not like about the Bill. I have already mentioned one in an Amendment which was refused and I do not propose to do more than to touch upon it. Among the names of the gentlemen whom the Colonial Secretary mentioned this evening I did not hear one of an expert in tropical agriculture. I suggest that when the right hon. Gentleman appoints more members in the future he should select an ex-agriculture officer from Kenya to serve perhaps for five years. After that, he might select one from the West Indies, then from Malaya and then from West Africa. That would improve the Corporation and would give some hope to men serving out there that when they retire their experience will not be entirely cast upon the dustheap.
The Minister of Food talked about food production. I would mention in passing that previous to the recent war Java produced 27 per cent. of the palm oil of the world and 25 per cent. of the coconut oil, and that last year she produced none at all. When Java ceases from civil war it is possible that she will make a substantial contribution to the food of the world again. The Amendment which was evidently in the wrong place was a most important one. It was—

Mr. Speaker: Not being in the Bill upon the Third Reading, that Amendment cannot be discussed now.

Sir W. Smiles: Very good, Sir. I would only say that there are weak points in the Bill. It would seem that the Colonial Secretary did not examine very carefully the territories for which he is legislating. We see the mistakes that have been made in the past. We see gullies 12 feet deep


and 12 feet wide and land ruined through bad cultivation. That is not only the case in our own Colonial Empire; it is the case all over the world. When I am at home and see a ploughman ploughing straight up and down hill I wonder if that will not make a gully in the next two years. Cultivation which has been carried on here for hundreds of years with our gentle rain could not be carried on in the territory the Colonial Secretary administers today. I remember being in the Residency in Basutoland where the agricultural officer was saying to me what wonderful steps he was taking for the preservation of the soil, and I said, "Look out"—

Mr. Speaker: I really thought I had indicated to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that discussion of this Amendment, which is not in the Bill now, was not in Order on the Third Reading.

Sir W. Smiles: It is very difficult to keep within the bounds, Mr. Speaker. I will conclude by saying that it is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman did not mention some of the ways by which he could improve cultivation as he will spend millions of pounds upon dams and irrigation, which is a most expensive way of coping with the problem. I have seen it said that the South African rivers now are too thick to drink and too thin to plough, that the reservoirs which the Colonial Secretary is providing money to build will be choked by silt from the bad cultivation above and that it would be a much more economical proposition to build these dams by means of hundreds of millions of blades of grass, which are nature's own forgiveness for the way the earth has been ill-treated in the past. It is not only there. We see it in the dust bowl of America, we see it in the Sahara desert and we see it in Mesopotamia—land ruined through greed and bad cultivation. While I welcome this Bill, it is a great pity that the Colonial Secretary did not include some mention of soil erosion. Perhaps he will be able to do so in another place.

9.43 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: The hon. and gallant Member for Down (Sir W. Smiles) has pointed so effectively to the advantages of national enterprise over private enterprise that it would be superfluous for me

to follow him in those remarks. I will therefore revert to the speech of the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin).

Mr. Dodds-Parker: Has the hon. Member made any inquiries about soil erosion in the groundnut scheme in the Congo?

Mr. Greenwood: Not so far as erosion is concerned, but I cannot believe it is strictly relevant to what was said by the hon. Member for Leominster or the argument I propose to advance if the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) will allow me. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) I disagreed with a great deal of what was said by the hon. Member for Leominster. In one part of his speech, however, the hon. Gentleman got down to the crux of the problem when he said that the important thing was to ensure that the native races were well fed and lived in proper villages under healthy conditions.
I was sorry that neither of my right hon. Friends who preceded me developed very fully the welfare aspects of this scheme and did not give any real earnest of the Government's intention to see that the two Corporations make full use of the opportunities they are afforded under Clause 8. That Clause offers the most hope of improving the social conditions of the people in the Colonial Empire who will be affected by this Measure, but if, and only if, His Majesty's Government here and the Colonial Governments and the Corporations take their powers under that Clause really seriously. So far, the reports one has received of the medical staff that they have appointed, and the great freedom and scope which they have given them, suggest that the Corporations are taking their powers seriously, and to that extent they are justifying the confidence which we in this House are reposing in them.
However, I would suggest tonight that we should make it perfectly clear to the Corporations that it is the intention of His Majesty's Government and this House that they should use fully the powers which we are conferring upon them. In the first place I would suggest that they should pay due attention to preventive medicine as well as curative medicine, because it is of the greatest importance that the Corporations should see that they do not import diseases like tuberculosis


and venereal disease into areas of native territory which so far have been immune from either of those diseases. I would like to see each scheme have attached to it a specialist tuberculosis officer because then, at least, we should know that the importance of nutrition and healthy villages would be under constant consideration by the Corporation—the point made by the hon. Member for Leominster.
I see one danger in the medical provisions of this scheme. That is that there may not be real co-operation and coordination between the Colonial medical services and the Corporation medical services. After all, it will be of little use if, shall we say, the Corporation cures one of its employees of tuberculosis and, as soon as he goes on leave, he goes back to a filthy, insanitary community where immediately he comes into contact again with the source of his original infection. I want to plead, therefore, for the most serious and complete cooperation between the Colonial Governments and the Corporation medical services.
In conclusion, may I say that, like all hon. Members, I appreciate the imaginative approach made by the Government to this problem. However, I hope they will accept this touchstone, that the test of whether this scheme is a success should not be the amount of raw materials or the amount of food which it brings to this country, but rather the benefits it confers upon the native subjects of His Majesty.

9.48 p.m.

Colonel Wheatley: The Minister of Food, in winding up on his side of the question, uttered the grave words that it is a matter of life and death that we should increase the production of food, throughout the Empire and in other parts of the world. I entirely agree and, for that reason, I want to give a warning on that subject. The schemes which the two Corporations will undertake will not, as indeed my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) warned us, produce a great deal of extra food in a very short time, for they are long-term experiments.
I will refer to Africa as it is a country about which I know something. There are always diseases, both of plants and animals, coming out of Africa, and from experience it has been found that it is unwise to rush into big schemes without

adequate experiment. For example, in the case of the big Sudan cotton project, for at least 10 years before the Gezira scheme or the Gash scheme for growing cotton was begun, experimental farms were used to discover the various diseases of plants, and troubles with labour, and even then, when they had launched the big scheme in the Gezira, many difficulties were met which threw them back. So we have to beware of thinking that these schemes will save us in the next year or two.
In the groundnut scheme in Tanganyika things may go pretty well at first, but there will be set-backs. If we are to get what we want in the way of co-operation from the natives, we have to go in for mass adult education. Lord Bledisloe, writing to "The Times" a few months ago, warned us that we will never have a great increase in agricultural production in Africa until we improve the health and nutrition of the natives. I entirely agree, and think that is a wise warning. It will be a long time before we can get the natives to take to adult education, and it is very difficult even in simple ways. Take for instance the many worm diseases, which are such a great handicap to their health. If only we could persuade the natives to wear some sort of foot covering and to use sanitary pits, 85 per cent, of those diseases would be avoided. They are diseases which affect their health to an enormous degree, but, directly one tries to persuade them to do either of those things, one is up against a wall of prejudice, which can only be broken down by education.
I do not wish to appear to be throwing a spanner into the wheels, because I am as keen as anyone on this Bill, and I think it is a splendid idea so long as we keep on the right lines. I am as pleased about Clause 8 as was the hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliff (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). If we can select good people to carry on the educational labour, and the medical sides of the work of the corporations, we shall be on the right lines and in time—a long time ahead—we shall get the co-operaton of the natives. But, until we can do that, we ought to be warned not to think that now the Bill has gone through and the two Corporations are coming into being, we shall not need to worry any more about food. Particularly in regard to the groundnut scheme we shall have drawbacks, and there is not


going to be such a wonderfully quick production of oils and other things which we require. Having spent many years in Africa and knowing what the Corporations can do for the people in that country, I welcome this scheme. I wish to emphasise that we are going in for these schemes because we feel we are helping the people of that great continent to improve their health and general welfare, and, for that reason, I think the schemes deserve great success.

9.54 p.m.

Dr. Segal: Now that this Bill has reached its final stages I cannot help feeling, looking back on its passage, that it is a pity so much time has been spent in discussing the merits of the lesser of the two projects it embodies, and especially that so much time has been almost wasted in the, to my mind, quite unreal controversy about the respective powers to be allocated to the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Minister of Food. I would rather like, at this late stage, to place much more emphasis on the true significance of the Colonial Development Corporation. Viewed in its proper perspective, it can open up a vast new horizon of development to the greater part of our Colonial territories. One hopes that it will ultimately achieve a great step forward in attempting a levelling up of the standard of living and the standard of prosperity among our different Colonies.
I am convinced that one of the greatest obstacles to co-operation among our four West African Colonies, for example, is the vast discrepancy which exists between the rate of income per head of the population of a Colony like Nigeria contrasted with the income per head of the population of a Colony like the Gold Coast. There they are, two almost adjacent territories, but the vast population of Nigeria, numbering something like 23 million, can only claim an income per head of the population of something like 10s. per year, whereas in the Gold Coast, with far richer natural resources, and with a far greater degree of development, the income per head of the population is at least £2. Until we can achieve the same great forward move in the development of Nigeria and bring the income of that territory somewhere nearer to the income of the Gold Coast, I believe that this great

Empire Development Corporation will have failed in its object.
I cannot too strongly endorse the appeal that was made from both sides of the House by the Minister of Food and the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley), and later repeated by various other speakers on both sides of the House, that this Bill is so vast in its conception that all considerations of party strife and party slogans ought to be eliminated. We should all combine to work together, as far as we possibly can, for the welfare and development of our Colonial territories. I believe it is quite premature for anyone on this side of the House to assert that the foundations for a brave new world of bush Socialism have now been well and truly laid in the heart of Central Africa. I think we shall have to wait a long time yet before "Let Us Face the Future" has been translated into the language of the drums and the beat of the tom-tom resounds to all its rhythmic cadences.
We can, however, say that we are agreed on all sides of the House that this Measure has at least been able to bring together the ranks of the peanut vendors in a large measure of agreement. There can be no stigma attaching to the term "peanut vendor" because on the future prosperity of our Overseas Food Corporation will depend to a considerable extent part of our bread and butter, or at least what goes today for butter, for the next few years to come.
I feel that this House cannot emphasise too strongly that whatever may happen when this Bill is translated into active machinery for the benefit of our African territories and equally of ourselves, one word will be completely eliminated from the minds of all those who work to bring this Measure to fruition. That word is "exploitation." I hope, above all, that no one in any of our Colonial territories will have in his mind the least vestige of suspicion that anyone connected with the machinery which this Bill initiates will ever be able to lend himself in the slightest degree to the exploitation of any single native in any of our Colonial possessions.
I think it is a significant fact that all sections of the House have combined to give this Bill their blessing, and I hope very sincerely that it may, in the not too


distant future, open up a great new era for a happier and fuller life to many of our Colonial populations who today are groping in the darkness of economic, cultural and political uncertainty. I think we can today lay the foundations of a development that would justify our faith in this country as one of the great Colonial Powers in the world, if not the greatest.

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: I hope the hon. Member for Preston (Dr. Segal) will forgive me if I do not follow him in some of his dreams of seeing the Colonial Secretary dressed in a grass skirt and the future Minister of Food dressed in a string of groundnuts. I think the point he has made is that throughout the discussion of this Bill we have concentrated too much on one or two of the only controversial matters between us and, by and large, except for the indications given by the Colonial Secretary in his final speech, there has been very little heard of the Colonial Development Corporation. I think it is a pity we have not had more opportunity of wider discussion on some of the bigger aspects of this Bill and it is in this respect that I would put to the Colonial Secretary that having set up this Corporation with the good will of everybody on both sides of the House, and having set up this machinery for spending £150 million of the taxpayers' money—which is still a lot of money—he should pay some heed to remarks made on both sides of the House as to some developments which may be undertaken.
I am associated with a group of hon. Members on both sides of the House in thinking out terms of practical development in East and Central Africa. I think we have to come to some sort of conclusion about the aspects of some kinds of development that the Government should be put first, including communications, harbours, railways, roads, and water—whether hydroelectric for irrigation or for domestic purposes—and the provision of cement and fertilizers, which would be the basics upon which those in Africa could develop and produce a tremendous amount for consumption, and for raising the standard of living in Africa. I think those are the basics which we want to produce through these Government Corporations if there is any slow down or hitch in their production by normal means. The Colonial Secretary referred to 120,000 tons

of groundnuts held up in Northern Nigeria, most of which was the 1946–47 harvest, because there was not transport to get it to the coast, through locomotives spare parts being sent to East Africa in order to assist the new scheme. It may be in order to send locomotive spares to East Africa rather than West Africa, but I think it should be very carefully considered and the Government should not give priority to one scheme against another.
Enterprise can be and has been tremendous in Africa already. Encouragement should be given to enterprise of all sorts, whether private or public, Government, individual or co-operative. Sir Frank Stockdale in his report was right that probably the single family farm is going in Africa. We must work on the co-operative system, and there are a tremendous number of people, whether African peasants, co-operative workers or settlers who can produce a tremendous amount to assist us in the next few years.
I put it to the Government that they should very seriously pay attention to the question of land tenure and the availability of labour. It is seriously frightening a lot of people in certain parts of Central Africa, and we have had some reports, such as that on Nyasaland, showing that there may be some doubt whether people already settled there have the right to go on developing their land. The hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. Rankin) talked about Africa for the Africans, but there are hundreds of thousands of European stock settled out there for many years who have as much right to be regarded as inhabitants as the indigenous population. Otherwise, we might find ourselves in the position of arguing with Scotsmen whether or not they have the right to be South of the Border, There is a certain doubt among a lot of the inhabitants who have settled out there as to their security of tenure.
There are other points, such as soil fertility and the question of the tsetse fly, which have to be overcome, and which I think, with the help of these Development Corporations, must be overcome before any big scale development can take place. Another point is that the Government should study marketing. One hon. Member mentioned Java and the production of some 25 per cent. more palm oil. An improvement in practically every primary product can be effected, on the basis of


the Java example, and would go a long way to solve the problems pressing on us today. I know that there are a lot of people who can produce more in the Empire, as I happen to be chairman of the British Empire Producers' Association, which is in close touch with these problems, and I think they should increase their production to the utmost, but we must give them some help in the direction of guaranteed markets for the future, and it is here that Imperial Preference played such an important part in the past and must play an important part in the future.
There is one other point which I would ask the Secretary of State to consider. Under Clause 11 of the Bill, and the borrowing powers provided by it, I m quite certain myself, having gone into this matter in considerable detail, that we are not going to be able to develop Southern Africa in the time at our disposal—five or ten years—and obtain the capital equipment entirely from this country—the bulldozers, rails, rolling stock and hydroelectric equipment—and that we must bring more from outside. We shall have to get assistance from outside in developing Southern Africa, and I believe it is quite possible to obtain a lot from North America. South Africa itself may provide some assistance, but I would ask if it is the intention of the Government that, under Clause 11 of this Bill, these Corporations shall have the right to raise funds in, say, Canada, to pay for equipment which they are going to use in Southern Africa? It would be the sort of point which private corporations would have the right to carry out, and which would be of great help in developing these territories, and would bring considerable support, particularly in Canada, if the Corporations were able to float debenture stock in Canada to provide the capital equipment.
Finally, I would join with all other hon. Members on both sides of the House who have wished this Bill well. Some years ago, a very distinguished scientist, at a meeting of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee, said that on the way in which we carried out the development of West Africa depended our ability to keep 45 million people in this country. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer this week has said that on our ability to develop Africa depends the survival of Britain. The are sombre words, but the expan-

sion which we have encouraged is one in which many of us see great possibilities of overcoming to a large extent, though not completely, many of our economic problems, and, above all, that of the shortage of primary products in Britain, I therefore express the best of good will to this Bill and to all those in various parts of the world who will be effective in making it work.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

TURBO-ALTERNATORS (STANDARDISATION)

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Erroll: I beg to move:
That the Control of Turbo-Alternators (No. 1) Order, 1947 (S.R. &amp; O., 1947, No. 2386), dated 7th November, 1947, a copy of which was presented on 13th November, be annulled.
The purpose of this order is to achieve the standardisation of the sizes of large turbo-alternators intended for the generating stations of this country. The standardisation is intended for two main purposes, as far as can be understood. First, it is to speed up the manufacture of equipment which is very urgently required, and, secondly, because of the result of the increasing use of the grid, it is not so necessary to make individual generators of particular sizes to meet the needs of particular localities. The tendency is all in favour of large centralised stations provided, as far as possible, with standardised equipment. Therefore, the intention behind this order is quite laudable.
On the other hand, the method of execution of this intention is deplorable. As most hon. Members know, there are only about 12 manufacturers of large turbo-alternators in this country, and there is only one customer in this country—the British Electricity Authority. Surely it should have been possible to obtain the effect of this order by agreement between this relatively small number of manufacturers and the one customer. There is, indeed, a valuable precedent for this type of agreement. The British Standards Institution was able to secure between manufacturers and customers in this country a very important standardisation in the sizes of large


transformers which was, and still is, of great value. I suggest it would have been even easier to achieve the necessary measure of agreement to standardise turbo-alternators without any order at all. Nevertheless, the method of compulsion was adopted and this order was produced.
It is compulsion of a particularly reprehensible character, because the order is retrospective in its effect. I see that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply shakes his head. I draw his attention to the order itself. In paragraph 2 (1, a) it is pointed out that a defence against infringement of this order can be accepted only if it is proved that the contract under which the order is being executed was made before 1st November, 1946. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and I put down a question to the Minister which was answered on 15th December last. The Minister gave as the reason for the retrospective effect of this order the fact that 1st November, 1946, was chosen as the operative date since, owing to the production time cycle, the specifications could still be altered. It will be noted that the Minister, in his reply, admitted that the order was retrospective in its effect.
However, the order itself was issued only on 7th November, 1947. Thus there was a period of over a year during which contracts could be placed which were subsequently to be rendered inoperative by the retrospective effect of this order. The parent Act under which this order was issued conveys no power whatever to the Executive to introduce retrospective orders. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor) will deal at some length with that aspect of the matter.
As a result of the order, manufacturers will have to modify or, in some cases, cancel sub-contracts already placed for supplies of components and materials, and a great deal of loss or inconvenience will undoubtedly be caused. Even if there is no great loss, it is surely a thoroughly undesirable principle for contracts, freely entered into between two private persons or bodies, to be rendered null and void by the retrospective effect of orders issued, as in this case, many months later.

10.16 p.m.

Sir John Mellor: beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) has described this order as having retrospective effect, and, apparently, the Ministry of Supply took the same view when a Question was answered on 15th December. I have searched the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, and the Extended Purposes Act, 1947, under which Acts this order was made, but I can find no authority whatsoever for making orders having retrospective effect. I support my hon. Friend in the view that this order has retrospective effect. Its effect is to invalidate a large number of contracts made between November, 1946, and November, 1947. Indeed, it would make the performance of those contracts illegal unless they conform with the specification contained in the schedule to the order. Therefore, in my submission, this order should be annulled as being ultra vires. It is retrospective in effect without having the appropriate Statutory authority for being retrospective.
I would refer the House to what was said by the Attorney-General on this point on 19th February, 1946. He said:
I entirely agree with the general proposition that unless a Statute expressly gives retrospective powers, delegated legislation ought not to take effect retrospectively. Indeed, in most cases one looks at, the particular Statutory powers acted under cannot take effect retrospectively. That is a general principle to which the Government will certainly adhere.
Then, a little further down, he said:
But, although that is a very sound rule of policy in the exercise of delegated powers, it does not always follow that the powers themselves do not, in law, enable retrospective orders to he made. One has to look at the powers themselves and see the exact manner in which they have been exercised in a particular case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1916; Vol. 419; c. 1053–54.]
In my submission, if one looks at the Supplies and Services Acts and also looks at the terms of this order, one should come to the conclusion that the order is retrospective without any authority from the Statute. That statement by the Attorney-General was followed up on 21st June, 1946, by a Treasury Circular which went to all Departments for their instruction. Paragraph 10 of that circular ran as follows—
The attention of Departments is directed to a recent ruling of the Law Officers of the Crown that as a matter of construction it may be said, in general, that unless the Act of Parliament which confers the power to make


subordinate legislation clearly confers power to give retrospective effect to it, the subordinate legislation cannot be made retrospective, and if it purports to be so made it will be ultra vires. Care should accordingly be exercised by Departments to see that subordinate legislation is not made with retrospective effect unless there is clear authority so to make it in the Act under which it is made, and that in case of doubt legal opinion is taken.
I feel that this is a case where the Ministry of Supply have come to grief. I hope very much that there will not be put forward the argument which was advanced by the Minister of Health shortly before Christmas. On 16th December, when a draft order which was made by the Minister of Health was challenged in this House on the ground that it was ultra vires, the Minister of Health replied as follows:—
The hon. and learned Member spoke about this order being ultra vires. If it is ultra vires we need not bother about it. It would have no effect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1947; Vol. 445, c. 1624.]
I submit that it is not right for this House to take the view that if an Order is ultra vires it can be left to the courts, because they will ignore the order if it is ultra vires. This House should scrutinise delegated legislation that comes before it, to ensure that it is regular and that it is intra vires. If we are right on the point, that this order has retrospective effect, and if we are also right that there is no authority in the parent Statute for it to be retrospective, I submit that it should be annulled tonight.

10.22 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Jack Jones): In coming to this Box for the first time, I would like to inform the House that if I were able to pick my subject I am certain this would be the last on which I would choose to speak. I am equally certain that there is no person more capable of doing battle on this subject than the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll).
This order was introduced in good faith for a specific purpose. One thing which rather amazes me is that the Opposition, who pray for power in all shapes and forms, and who on this occasion have been offered power of a certain type, now seek to pray against it. This order was made for the specific purpose of producing the greatest amount of power at the earliest possible moment and at the cheapest possible rate, the idea being to

standardise the production of generating plant so that we should be able to provide at the quickest possible moment all the power which our country needs to assist us to get out of our economic difficulties.
For a considerable time there had been talk of standardisation, but as is common with the Opposition, there has always been plenty of talk about doing things without any real progress. So an order was put into operation which was definite and specific, and which was intended to do, and is doing, a job of work. To some extent, there had been a measure of agreement with regard to the need for standardisation, but there had been no real progress. In March last my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade accepted responsibility for phasing and getting ahead with the necessary deployment of raw materials in order to make progress in the production of heavy electrical plant, and I am sure we all felt that steps to solve these difficulties would be a good thing. It was agreed on all hands, and particularly by the experts in the electrical industry, that this standardisation and this order would expedite delivery of generating plant to an extent of something like six or nine months, and if we can get plant six or nine months sooner rather than later all the evils to which the country has been subjected, according to the Opposition at least, will be removed at an earlier rather than at a late date.
I want to tell the House that the best possible technical advice was sought, and not all on this side of the House. The Minister took upon himself the obligation of consulting the best brains of the country about this problem. The Opposition may well ask why this particular date was decided upon—1st November, 1946, and why the order actually became operative on 13th November, 1947. There is a reason for that. It is not because it synchronised with the local elections or with Guy Fawkes day or anything of that description, but because it synchronised with the time, which it was agreed, would disturb to the least possible extent the progress that was being made at that time.
I want to tell the House that every consultation took place in a friendly atmosphere and that a most careful and detailed examination of the whole pro-


ject was made before a decision was taken. Manufacturers themselves were consulted and, indeed, were given some idea as to what the draft would be and they agreed. So I want to impress upon the House, and particularly upon my good friends who are raising this question, that everybody who knew the subject was consulted, the idea being to bring this order into operation with the least possible disturbance and with the least possible cost. I want to submit to the House, at all events to all practical thinking men and women, that no order of this type could be put into operation without to some extent hurting somebody somewhere. It is a physical and technical impossibility to make certain alterations without somebody feeling hurt, but this order was so arranged and so designed as to create the least possible amount of disturbance, having regard both to the manufacturers' point of view and to the country's economic position. The standards that have been arranged are important.
It would appear, if we listened to the Opposition point of view, that something terrible has been done. All we seek to do is to standardise new projects and new plants. In the case of an extension to an old plant, where the new standard cannot be synchronised with existing plant, then the Minister has power at once to give a licence for the production of a non-standard set or part of a set to fit with existing plant. This elasticity is necessary and we would be foolish to remove it. In regard to any new venture, where it can be proved to the satisfaction of the advisers of the Minister that it is impossible for the standard to meet the requirements of a particular part of the country or industry, licences will be willingly and readily granted to allow a non-standard set to be proceeded with. Sets for ships, as the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale knows, and sets for export, do not come within the terms of the order, nor do sets of 30,000 to 60,000 kilowatt production.
In looking into this I have been careful to see that we do not seek to standardise the whole of the production throughout the whole length of the country. What we do seek to do, and indeed what the order sets out to do—and it is intended to keep the order in being so that it shall do it—is to standardise the

production where the principal manufacture is concerned. Therefore, we suggest to the Opposition that the order allows the fullest amount of elasticity and that the greatest amount of attention has been paid to the points of view raised by manufacturers, and indeed by potential buyers.
As I said before production of this type of plant could at no stage he so arranged as not to disturb the manufacturers to some extent; but in no case, so far as my right hon. Friend the Minister is aware, was there a stage of plant in production that could not at that time be changed to meet the terms of the order. That is important. I am seeking to prove, and believe I am proving, that the manufacturers themselves were subjected to the least amount of dislocation in their job, and taking a short-term view, as I have said, one has to hurt somebody. But taking the long-term view, we feel this order should be welcomed by the House and by the country as a whole.
I would say, in conclusion, that I will not deal with the details of the law. I have with me my hon. and learned Friend, the Solicitor-General who will deal with that aspect far more ably than I could hope to do. But I am bound to say we were advised right throughout the consultations that this order was not retrospective, as suggested, and was well within the terms of the law as laid down. As a matter of fact, when this order went to the Committee responsible for scrutinising any Bill or order for its retrospective effect, we received no comment upon it and we were advised, I repeat with emphasis, that we were well within the law. I feel the order was designed and accepted a a move in the right direction. I am hoping that as a result of the statement I have made and because of the elasticity that has been allowed within this order to manufacturers and potential consumers, that my hon. Friends opposite will not seek to press the Motion, and indeed will withdraw it; but, as I have already indicated, my hon. and learned Friend will have something to say about the legal aspect, and following on that, I hope that the Motion will be disposed of by its withdrawal.

10.33 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Frank Soskice): I would not endeavour, after that exposition, to add anything on the merits of this matter. I feel the House is


fully in possession of the case so far as the merits are concerned, but an invitation has been extended to me to add something on the purely legal aspect of the case as to whether this order is retrospective in the legal sense. I would advise the House that, in my opinion at any rate, it is undoubtedly not retrospective. The effect of the order is that, as from the time the order comes into force, namely, on 13th November, 1947, nobody shall continue in process of manufacturing other than the permitted types of set, that is to say, other than sets above 10,000 kilowatts, unless they are 30,000 kilowatts or 60,000 kilowatts, and conform to the specifications in the schedule to the order.
The exception, however, to these general provisions is this: if a set is being manufactured in performance of a contract made before 1st November, 1946, manufacture can continue, and likewise, it can continue if the set is being made in performance of a contract for shipping or export. What the order says is that from the time the order comes into force, no further manufacture shall continue; in other words, the manufacture shall stop. That does not make illegal anything entered into before the order comes into force, nor does it invalidate any contract. Nobody has committed an illegal act in making such a prohibited set at any time before the actual moment the order comes into force. It is purely prospective in its effect.

Sir J. Mellor: Would not the Solicitor-General agree that it would make the performance of contracts made between November, 1946, and November, 1947, illegal if their terms were not in accordance with the schedule to this order?

The Solicitor-General: I could not agree with that. If their terms were in accordance with the schedule, there would be nothing illegal done in pursuance of those contracts before the date the order came into effect. If, however, after the date on which the order came into effect, further work has been done under the contract, and this has not been specifically licensed, it becomes illegal. That is why I say, in a purely legal sense, which is the sense in which I am personally concerned, it is not retrospective and not ultra vires.

Sir J. Mellor: But would it not make the completion of the contract illegal according to the original contract?

The Solicitor-General: Certainly, and, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out, the order has been so timed, and the date, 1st Nov., 1946, so fixed, that it should be possible in the case of any contract made after that date to be altered with the minimum of loss and inconvenience to any manufacturer to make it comply with the schedule and the order. That is a reason why this order is not retrospective. It does not make anything done before the order comes into effect illegal, and I should have thought this simple conception would explain why it is not retrospective. I do not feel that I can add anything to what has been said by the Parliamentary Secretary on the merits of this order, which is perfectly intra vires. Not being ultra vires, the only question concerns the general merits, and this I feel has been thoroughly answered by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Erroll: May I say a word by way of reply? This has been an interesting discussion, and I would like to emphasise that, as far as we on this side are concerned, we have no quarrel with the idea of standardisation. We agree that it is a desirable step forward for the time being. There is no dispute about that. The dispute is about the retrospective character of the order. One must disagree with the reply of the Solicitor-General. There might be an original contract placed on 1st December, 1946, for a complete turbo-alternator, and not at a stage of completion on 1st November, 1947. It is necessary to break the contract or proceed illegally if the contract is to be fulfilled. There is, furthermore, some degree of disturbance and inconvenience caused to the manufacturers. To say that a date has been chosen to give the least disturbance is no defence at all. Disturbance is being caused, and it is admitted that it has been caused. I can suggest how less disturbance could have been caused, and that is by not introducing an order of a retrospective character.

Mr. J. Jones: It was admitted there was a minimum of disturbance, and no practical man in this House would suggest that an order of this description could be brought about without some degree of disturbance. This order was designed to bring about the least disturbance.

Mr. Erroll: It is surely obvious that this order is retrospective, since it gives dis-


turbance to contracts already envisaged. It remains only for me to say that it has been a great pleasure to hear the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on his first occasion at the Despatch Box, but I regret that the matter has been one that is more legal than technical. Nevertheless, we appreciate his exposition on this subject of standardisation. The matter, however,

remains extremely unsatisfactory, and we shall have to divide the House on it.

Question put,
That the Control of Turbo-Alternators (No. 1) Order, 1947 (S.R. &amp; O., 1947, No. 2386), dated 7th November, 1947, a copy which was presented on 13th November, be annulled.

The House divided: Ayes, 32; Noes, 199.

Division No 56.]
AYES.
[10.40 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Hollis M. C.
Scott, Lord W.


Assheton, Rt Hon. R.
Hurd, A.
Spence, H. R.


Baldwin, A. E.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Carson, E.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Studholme, H. G.


Challen, C.
Molson, A. H. E.
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Mullan, Lt. C. H.
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. [...]. E
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Wheatley, Col. M. J. (Dorset, E.)


Gage, C.
Odey, G. W.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Gomme Duncan, Col. A
Raikes, H. V.
Mr. Erroll and Sir John Mellor.


Hannon, S[...] P. (Moseley)
Ramsay, Maj. S



Haughton, S. G.
Rayner, Brig. R.





NOES


Acland, Sir R.
Fairhurst, F.
Marshall, F. (Brightside) 


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Farthing, W. J.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Field, Capt. W. J
Medland, H. M.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Forman, J. C.
Middleton, Mrs. L.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Mikardo, Ian.


Austin, H Lewis
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Millington, Wing-Comdr. E. R.


Awbery, S. S.
Gibbins, J.
Mitchison, G. R.


Bacon, Miss A.
Gibson, C. W.
Moody, A. S.


Baird, J.
Gilzean, A.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Barstow, P. G
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Morley, R.


Barton, C
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)


Bechervaise, A. E.
Granville, E. (Eye)
Mort, D. L.


Belcher, J. W
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Moyle, A.


Berry, H.
Grenfell, D. R.
Murray, J. D


Binns, J.
Grey, C. F.
Nally, W.


Blenkinsop, A.
Grierson, E
Neal, H. (Claycr[...]ss)


Blyton, W. R.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)


Boardman, H.
Guy, W. H
Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E (Brentford)


Bottomley, A. G.
Hardy, E. A.
Orbach, M.


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Haworth, J.
Palmer, A. M. F.


Braddock, T (Mitcham)
Herbison, Miss M.
Pargiter, G. A.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Hewitson, Capt. M
Parker, J.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Hobson, C. R.
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Brown, George (Belper)
Holman, P.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Burden, T. W.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Pearson, A.


Burke, W. A.
House, G.
Platts-Mills, J. F. F.


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Hubbard, T.
Porter, E. (Warrington)


Champion, A. J.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Cobb, F. A.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Pritt, D. N.


Collindridge, F.
Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W)
Pursey, Cmdr. H


Collins, V. J.
Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Colman, Miss G. M.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Robens, A.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Rogers, G. H. R


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Royle, C.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield)
Jones, D T. (Hartlepool)
Sargood, R.


Davies, Hadyn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)
Segal, Dr. S.


Delargy, H. J.
Jones, J H. (Bolton)
Sharp, Granville


Diamond, J
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)


Dobbie, W
Keenan, W
Shawcross, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (St. Helens)


Dodds, N. N.
Kenyon, C.
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Driberg, T. E. N.
King, E. M
Simmons, C J.


Dumpleton, C. W.
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E
Skeffington, A. M


Dye, S.
Kinley, J.
Skinnard, F. W.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Levy, B. W.
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Lindgren, G S.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
McAdam, W.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
McGhee, H. G.
Snow, J. W.


Evans, John (Ogmore)
Mack, J. D.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
McKinlay, A. S.
Stamford, W.


Ewart, R.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Steele, T.




Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Turner-Samuels, M.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Summerskill, Dr. Edith
Ungoed-Thomas, L.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Sylvester, G. O.
Usborne, Henry
Willis, E.


Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Vernon, Maj. W. F.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Taylor, R. J (Morpeth)
Viant, S. P.
Wilmot, Rt. Hon. J


Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)
Walker, G. H.
Wise, Major F. J


Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)
Woods, G. S.


Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)
Wyatt, W.


Thomas, John R. (Dover)
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)
Yates, V. F.


Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)
Wheatley, J. T. (Edinburgh, E.)
Zilliacus, K.


Thurtle, Ernest
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Tiffany, S.
Wigg, George
Mr. Popplewell and


Timmons, J.
Wilkins, W. A.
Mr. Richard Adams.


Titterington, M. F.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)



Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G
Williams, D. J, (Neath)

FARM WORKERS (MEAT RATION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

10.50 p.m.

Mr. Baldwin: I make no excuse for detaining the House at this late hour in order to call attention to what I consider to be the scandalous refusal of the Ministry of Food to recognise the claims of farm workers to an extra meat ration. I do not know whether this country fully realises that these men, who work longer hours than those in any other industry, in all weathers, have a lower standard of living than any other industrial worker. I think it is about time the Government, instead of offering excuses why these men cannot get this extra ration, should say that they are prepared to admit the claim and see that they have it.
I raised this matter on the Adjournment last April. Many reasons were given at the time why they should not have this extra ration. Questions have been asked repeatedly from both sides of the House. Excuses have been given every time. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary has decided to start the New Year in a more reasonable frame of mind. Many excuses have been made, but there has been no substance in them, and I hope that tonight those old excuses and those old reasons will be forgotten. If the Parliamentary Secretary is not prepared to meet their claim, I shall be interested to see what fresh excuses she has why this should not be done.
I hope the Hon. Lady will not bring forward as an excuse the extra bread and cheese which these men are entitled to get. That has been said so often that the Minister of Food is now known among the farm workers, not as the Minister of Food, but as the minister of bread

and cheese. I wonder how the Minister of Food or any Member of this House would like to do the work these men do and have to live on bread and cheese for five days out of seven, because that is what these men are doing at the present time. The farm worker gets a joint at the end of the week and has his meal off it on Sunday. He has a little left over for the Monday, and for the rest of the week he has bread and cheese, or jam. How can we expect that increased food production for which the Minister of Agriculture is clamouring unless we feed properly the men who produce the food?
I know it will be said that the farm worker gets extra rations for seasonal work. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell me when the farm worker is not doing seasonal work. When does it stop? Sundays or weekdays, winter or summer, his work is always seasonal. If all he is going to get for this seasonal work is a little bit of extra bread and cheese and jam and tea, how can we expect him to do this work? The ration we give is not a direct ration to the men. They have to rely on it from their employers. It is a nuisance to the employer and his wife to have to allocate the extra rations when they are drawn. I see no reason whatsoever why the extra rations should not be issued direct to the men personally or to their women folk. I can see no administrative difficulty. These workers can get the extra cheese ration now y production of their unemployment card and I cannot see why the same procedure should not be followed so that the extra seasonal ration can be drawn personally instead of in bulk by their employers.
I hope we shall not hear again tonight the charge that the farmers have been non-co-operative in drawing these rations. I refuse to believe it. If that is put for-


ward again as a statement of fact, I challenge the Parliamentary Secretary to give me actual facts, and I will investigate them to see if they are true or not. Statements are often made, but they are not properly investigated, and I am not going to believe that there is any decent employer of labour who refuses to draw these rations and issue them to his men. Let us carry our minds back to last winter, during those two months of snow, floods, frost and wind. When most of us were sleeping comfortably in our beds, these men were up on the hills looking after their stock so that we might have some meat. Yet all they get is this extra bit of bread and cheese.
I may be told that the farm workers can have the benefit of a canteen. If that is again put forward, then the Ministry of Food have not the least idea of the practical situation on the farms. Except in a very few cases, where there are big numbers of men engaged on the farm, a canteen is practically impossible. Many of the farms have a labour force of two or three men. They may be employed on two or three different parts of the farm. Is it really suggested that a canteen can be worked to give those men their food in two or three different places during the dinner hour? It is absolutely absurd.
The Minister of Food has on many occasions said that the present rationing system is "fair shares for all." I would like to use an unparliamentary expression, but all I can say is that it is absolute rubbish. It is not fair shares for all when people who live in the towns, and hon. Members of this House, can get two or three meat meals a day if they want to do so. Girls and clerks doing sedentary jobs in offices, some working less than 40 hours a week, can go to a British Restaurant or a cafeteria. A farm worker has not these benefits. He has to make do with what he can get, so it is clear that the statement that the present rationing system is fair shares for all is not true. It is stated that the meat pie scheme helps to fill the gap. The meat pie scheme is a failure to a very large extent, so far as I can see. If there is meat available for the meat pie scheme, I suggest that it should be saved and given as a direct ration to the men instead of those who are in a position to get the meat pies having the full benefit of it.
To give the men an extra pound of meat a week, I believe, entails something like 20,000 tons of meat a year and it would cost something like £2,000,000. Is it suggested that the meat ration allocated for the canteens, hotels, restaurants, and meat pies cannot be cut down to the extent of 20,000 tons a year, and if it is a question of money would it not be better that we should save £2,000,000 by reducing the purchases of lipstick and chewing gum, and let that money be expended on meat for the men, so that they could do their job? The Parliamentary Secretary, in the last Debate, called attention to the fact that a calf could be killed every three months for the men. I do not think that it is in the interest of the food of this country that a calf should be killed. I do not know what they do with the calf when they kill it. I do not see any practical help in a suggestion of that sort. Again, it is said that the men can keep a. pig. If they live in a 6s. a week cottage, they might have the right to keep a pig, but if they live in a council house herded together in blocks, or in villages, they cannot keep a pig; and those who keep a pig have to give back something for it. That is not a very practical suggestion.
I want to call attention also to the fact that the workers' wives have not got the same shopping facilities as those women who live in towns or in the suburbs of towns. They cannot run to the butcher's shop every morning and get a few odd scraps to help out the week's supplies. They have no fish shops and they cannot go to a fish-and-chips shop in the evening. They have no means of getting a little bit of extra rations. I claim on their behalf that if the Ministry are not prepared to meet their just claims, then the Ministry ought to feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
If these men were of the sort who would be prepared to hold this country up to ransom, and were organised to that extent, and had the will to do it and said that they would "down tools" next Friday unless their claims were recognised, this would be handed over to them. But they are not men of that sort. They are the one section in this country who have done their job without grumbling. They have not asked for decreased hours of work. They have had increased wages, it is true. They have kept on cheerfully


with their job, with practically no absenteeism, as they did during the war. Therefore, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to recognise the claims of these people and give them the extra ration they are entitled to receive.

11.2 p.m.

Mr. Dye: I cannot help feeling that the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) has given the whole case away in his last few sentences, when he asserted that the farm workers of this country have shown such cheerfulness throughout the war and right up to the present time. They would certainly not have been able to do that if they had not been sufficiently fed. Therefore the hon. Member for Leominster is not reflecting the kind of feeling he says exists amongst farm workers when he keeps saying they are "so cheerful." I think we want to look at this matter more realistically. It is an easy matter for any hon. Member to come to the House and ask for something more for a section of the community. Every hon. Member can do that. When there are shortages every hon. Member can ask for a bit more without in any way explaining where that little more is coming from.

Mr. Baldwin: Where did the miners get their ration.

Mr. Dye: It is just as easy to try and set one section of the community against another and say "These are miners" or "These are agricultural workers." The agricultural workers are very cheerfully increasing production in agriculture, as and when weather permits, and although there may be gloomy prophets, as there always have been, yet looking round the countryside—at least that part of it in which I have been in recent months—I have noticed how men are still working cheerfully. I quite agree that the thing which most farm workers feel, among all the shortages, is the shortage of meat, because what they liked to take into the fields is a piece of meat to eat with their bread when they are working. If, then, there is a shortage of meat and the Government make provision for additional meat of which the localities do not take advantage, it seems to me that there is something wrong with those who have, or profess to have, the interest of their constituents at heart.
Before I came to this House I was, for a number of years, chairman of a rural district council's British Restaurants and meat pies committee, which endeavoured to supply the needs of the whole rural community—not just the farm workers, but through canteens in the villages to enable men, women, and children to purchase extra food, such as meat pies, cakes, biscuits and other things. This service has been functioning now for six years. One discovery we have made is that when there is extra food about, as at Christmas, we can close down; for no one then wants to buy what we supply. In periods of seasonal activity, for which extra rations are available on the farms, our sales at the British Restaurants, and of meat pies, go down, indicating to me, at any rate, that with the additional food supplied from our restaurants and from our vans, which go round the area, that the people are getting enough. In that rural district I have not had half a dozen complaints about shortage of food throughout the time I have been a Member of this House.
But there are other districts in my Division where such facilities are not available, and whence I get some complaints. As far as I see it, the case is that certain localities are not making use of the facilities offered by the Ministry of Food—that they did not do so during the war, and are not doing so at present. If the district councils will now use their powers in the best way, whether by providing meat pies or a general British restaurants scheme, not necessarily providing hot meals at a sit-down table, but the type of stuff people can buy and take away without surrendering points or B.U.s or anything else within the scheme of the Ministry of Food, they can give satisfaction.
I would welcome any general scheme for an increase in the meat or cheese rations not only for farm workers, but for others who work on the farms regularly, but who are not classified as farm workers. For instance, in Norfolk we get a large number of rabbits which have to be killed if they are not to do a great deal of damage. If the man who is engaged in killing rabbits is employed by the farmer regularly, he can get the extra cheese ration. If, on the other hand, the farmer puts the job of killing the rabbits out to a contractor, the contractor's man who


kills the rabbits on the farm is not allowed the extra rations which the farm workers get. There are cases like that which I think the Ministry of Food could look into with a view to sharing out equally among rural workers such extra food as is available.

11.9 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I think the House will agree that the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Dye), who I think has a practical experience of farming equal to that of the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) who raised this matter to-night, has answered many of the questions raised by the hon. Member opposite. This question has been raised before and on other occasions I think the hon. Member for Leominster has presented his case in a reasonable manner; but I must confess that tonight I was very surprised to hear him say that in his opinion the agricultural worker had a lower standard of living than any industrial worker. I want to say that, in my opinion, that is a gross exaggeration.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: It is perfectly true.

Dr. Summerskill: As we have heard tonight from the hon. Member for South-West Norfolk, there is absolutely no basis for it. The hon. Member knows full well that my Department has to recognise certain principles in distributing the available food, and we have as far as possible tried to distribute it fairly. When a category of workers comes along and demands extra rations, we have to consider it carefully, in the light of prevailing circumstances. We have to consider the question of accessibility to a canteen. It is not the amount of sweat that is lost or the energy used in a particular job that necessarily determines the supplementary rations given to any category of workers. It is the accessibility to a canteen. If to-night I said that the agricultural workers should be given this extra ration, then the steel workers might well come along and the men engaged in timber production. As the hon. Member knows, there are people felling timber who might well ask for the same concession.
But the hon. Member must see the whole picture in its proper perspective. He must, as a responsible member of the

community, take into consideration other factors—there is the question of supply, which has been mentioned by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of Food on numbers of occasions. The hon. Member said that if we gave this extra ration of meat to the agricultural workers it would only mean 20,000 tons of meat a year. Actually, it would mean 25,000 tons. Let us see what would be the repercussion on the ordinary domestic consumer. At the moment the ration of meat is equivalent to 1s. worth. It may be that during this year we shall have to issue 2d. worth of canned corned meat for part of the year. If the meat ration for agricultural workers were doubled, which would mean 25,000 tons, the result would be that the civilian ration would have to contain 2d. worth of canned corned meat for an extra six weeks.

Mr. Baldwin: I did not suggest that civilian rations should be cut; but walk up the streets of London tonight and see people guzzling meat that the farm workers might have.

Dr. Summerskill: I am surprised that the hon. Member does not express the same concern for the wife of the urban worker and appreciate her difficulties as much as those of the wife of the agricultural worker. My Department has to consider every category. Surely the representatives of the workers are the right people to decide this issue.

Mr. Baldwin: Not at all.

Dr. Summerskill: Certainly. They have done the work, most of them. Most of the representatives have served in the particular capacity which they represent in the Trades Union Congress. The hon. Member cannot persuade me that he has been an agricultural labourer for a long period.
We therefore invited the Trades Union Congress to advise us on these matters, because we felt that these people were competent to judge. An advisory committee of the Trades Union Congress considers every application. I am very pleased to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman tonight that only last month, in December, they considered the whole question of supplementary rations for farm workers, for iron and steel workers, and for ironstone miners, who were asking for extra meat rations; and they de-


cided not to recommend these claims, because they knew full well that if they were recognised, then there would be a multiplicity of claims, the rejection of which would cause industrial unrest. The Trades Union Congress, I think hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree, is a responsible body and recognises that if all these claims were accepted—as, indeed, they would have to be if we granted this one—there would be a serious cut in the rations for the rest of the community.
I want to remind the House of the advantages which the agricultural worker enjoys. The hon. Member for Leominster "pooh-poohed" the cheese ration. He seems to forget that, from the nutritional point of view, cheese is equal to meat. The agricultural worker gets an extra weekly allowance of 10 ozs. of cheese, six extra bread units to go with the cheese and six bread units as a manual worker. Hr also gets the seasonal allowances and the pies.

Mr. Edgar Granville: He does not get hot meals in industrial canteens.

Dr. Summerskill: I am coming to that, if only the hon. Member will be a little quiet. We have not come here to listen to him, but we have come to consider something serious. Now I come to the hot meals. The hon. Member for Leominster suggested that very few agricultural workers keep pigs and then made the most amazing statement that the food which we allocate for pig feeding does not feed a pig. There was another exaggeration made tonight, which many farmers here find it difficult to understand. I should like to tell him that last year we issued licences to slaughter pigs to 114,000 households of agricultural workers. This means that, these workers get extra meat and bacon and the hot meals that the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) has been demanding. Further than that, there are other advantages. Recently we have had to introduce potato rationing, but so far as the agricultural worker is concerned, he is permitted to get potatoes from farmers free of the ration. Then I

would remind the House that he has his allotment where he can grow his own vegetables. He also can keep chickens.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is that held against him?

Dr. Summerskill: I do not hold it against him. I wish we could all have allotments.

Mr. Granville: Where does he get his hot meals?

Dr. Summerskill: If one cooks bacon it becomes hot. The agricultural worker can keep chickens, which means he gets chickens and eggs. In view of these circumstances I think I am right in saying that it was a gross exaggeration for the hon. Member for Leominster to say that the agricultural labourer has a lower standard of living than any industrial worker. In these circumstances I feel we cannot possibly grant this concession.

11.19 p.m.

Colonel Gomme-Dunean: It is a deplorable speech to which we have listened from the hon. Lady. She has obviously no knowledge of the conditions of the farm worker. There is no question about that. She could not have said those things if she had. The fact is that the farm worker today, in Scotland and England, is on a lower standard of living than the great majority of industrial workers. There is no getting away from that. As the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) has pointed out, the hon. Lady has made no attempt to mention the question of hot meals, and the canteens that the industrial workers have provided for them. All she says is, "Bacon, if you cook it, becomes hot." We could have said that on this side of the House.

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Gentleman did not appear to know that.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.